How To Deal With A Bully

What is the best way to deal with a bully?

When I was six years old the bully in our neighborhood hit me.  I decided to deal with the bully in the same that I had seen my dad deal with bullies.  So I hit him back and made sure that he regretted hitting me.  It seemed like how to deal with a bully.

This set off a chain of events resulting in a sort of blood feud between his family and our family.  When the bully and his brothers ganged up on me and beat me up it set off a chain of events that ended with my mother moving us to the farm in Arkansas where her family lived and my parents getting divorced.

I hated my parents being divorced more than anything in the world.  I blamed myself for the divorce because I was not being tough enough to deal with those bullies so that they stopped bullying people.  I also blamed that family of bullies for what happened to my family and it made me angry ever time I thought about them.  I wanted to know how to deal with a bully.

My hero at the time was Batman because he beat up bullies and sent them to jail. No matter how big or how many bullies he had to fight at once he always managed to subdue them.  These bullies were always part of a sort family of criminals that was headed by a father figure that was the main villain (like Joker) and he always managed to take out that bully as well.  He protected others from bullies and never backed down from a bully.  Bullies were afraid of Batman.  Batman terrorized the bullies that terrorized other people.  Batman seemed to know how to deal with a bully.

As I read more and more Batman comics I started noticing a flaw in how Batman dealt with bullies.  He would hand the bullies over the police who when then incarcerate them - usually in Arkham for the main villains.  Then it all fell apart.  Sooner or later they would break out of Arkham or prison and be back to terrorizing innocent people.  It seemed that the authorities did not know how to deal with a bully.

I also found out in real life that going to the authorities in my school was often a useless way to deal with a bully. Whenever I got in a fight when a bully began picking on me at school I would get in trouble with the authorities for fighting.  When I told the authorities so they could handle things instead (as they had said that I should do) then they generally did nothing to stop the bullies from picking on anyone.  They basically did not want to upset the wrong people in the community.  So they wanted those that were picked on by the bullies to just take it without upsetting anyone else.  It seemed that they did not know how to deal with a bully.

Then one day I read a Human Target comic book.  This hero would either disguise himself to look like someone that a villain was trying to kill or he would draw their attention to him instead of their intended victim, so the intended victim could escape.  I started doing the same thing at school so that the bullies would pick on me instead of some of the smaller kids.

Eventually their harassment would set me off so much that I lost all control and either hurt someone or broke something in a fit of rage.  Usually this behavior would scare everyone in school and they would lay off bullying for a while after that.  However, I could not always protect everyone from every bully so this did not seem like how to deal with a bully.

I also became quite proficient at hurting these bullies back in other ways.  I became very mean with my mouth and knew how to say the most hurtful thing at just the right moment to cause them the most emotional pain possible.  I also would irritate them in front of their girlfriends.  They would usually react the same way that they always had.  Most of the time their girlfriends would stop feeling safe around them after that and break up with them.  I made good grades with great ease and made sure that they felt they were really stupid.   Still, no matter how much I hurt them back they still persisted in bullying me and other people.  This was not obviously not how to deal with a bully.

Then one day my Uncle Ken took us out to the ponds around the farm with some guns.  He told us that we were going to kill off as many water moccasins as possible.  We always had lots of water moccasins around our ponds but they never seemed to do any harm.  I loved snakes so I started to protest against killing the water moccasins.  I asked why we were killing the water moccasins.  He explained that they were poisonous and could bite someone.  I pointed out that anytime we got near them they took off like a rocket into the water to escape.  He said that they could bite one of the cows or calves and kill it.  I asked him if anyone he knew had ever had their livestock bitten and killed by a water moccasin.  He said that he had not known of this actually occurring but the only way to be sure to protect the cattle was to kill off the water moccasins.  I started to protest further but he was getting a little put out with my persistence.  So, he basically said that somethings just needed killing and that was the end of the discussion.  So we went around and shot all of the water moccasins we could find.

It seemed to me that if the best way to deal with water moccasins that might hurt innocent cattle was to kill them off, then perhaps the best way to deal with bullies that did hurt innocent people was to kill them off.  If Batman had killed them off then they would not be able to escape Arkham or prison to further terrorize people.  It seemed that some people just needed killing.

As time went on my anger at bullies in general was growing into hatred.  I tried not to hate bullies, because I knew that I was not supposed to hate people.  Then my grandfather died and things went really dark for me.  Grandpa was the pillar of our family and he kept the rest of us in line somehow.  Without his influence the family began to fall apart in so many ways.

I had fought against sudden uncontrollable fits of rage every since my parents had divorced.  I had already branched out into involvement with occult and the like but it seemed like Grandpa somehow restrained me in some manner.  Without his influence or council I started losing a lot of my restraint. I would find myself planning to kill certain bullies at various times.

Then I had read a spy novel where the hero would kill off bad guys by staging accidents.  That seemed like how to deal with a bully to me.  So sometimes when I would get angry at one of the bullies at our school I would plan some accident to kill them off with.  Sometimes I would even practice staging accidents on our farm with person shaped targets.  I'm sure this alarmed Uncle Ken and Granny.

Over time I began to have nightmares where I abducted some of these bullies, killed them in some horribly painful way and then buried them deep in the woods. I had learned enough from my father and the Boy Scouts that I could take nothing but a knife with me and camp in the woods for a week .  (My brother David did not even need to take a knife with him.  He could make one from flint.)  I had worked hard on the farm and was stronger than I looked.  If they had been too heavy to carry then I knew how to use an axe.

My anger had turned into full blown hatred by this time.  I not only wanted to kill certain bullies as painfully as possible but I also hoped that Hell was real so that their suffering would never end.

However there was one insurmountable obstacle to all of my plans - praying grandmothers.

Sometimes after being harassed enough and hearing of bullies harassing enough innocent people with no hope of relief from the authorities I would just decide that I had to take immediate action.  Whenever this would occur a  kind and gentle voice would talk me out of killing any bullies.  The kind and gentle voice would point out all of the innocent people that I would hurt like some of the sisters of the bullies who were always kind to me.  The kind and gentle voice would tell me that I would get caught and that I would bring shame to my family.  The kind and gentle voice said that this was not how to deal with a bully.

I especially remember being talked out of my plan to cause an accident when I learned that a group of bullies were going camping together on Deer Day.  Although they were allegedly hunting deer everyone knew that they were really just skipping a day of school to go out into the woods and get drunk.  This seemed almost too good to be true.  I knew where they were going and that there would be plenty of alcohol that could "accidentally" get knocked into the fire while they were stone cold drunk.  I figured that they would die in the infernal and all evidence of my involvement would burn up with them.

Then the kind and gentle voice reminded me that another guy was going with them who had stood between me and one of the bullies who had been minded to beat me up.  I certainly did not want him to get hurt so I decided against the whole plan.

There were a few times when I was taken over in a fit of rage so badly that the kind and gentle voice could not talk me out trying to go ahead and kill certain bullies.  However, talking was not the only way the one behind that voice had to keep me from doing what I saw as how to deal with a bully.

Sometimes my car would break down when I was in one of these fits of rage and just not start.  An hour later when I had cooled down and help had arrived my car would start without any explanation.  Then it would work fine for weeks until another episode occurred.

Then there was one bully at my job who threatened to beat me up after work.  There was a large chef knife that was being thrown away so I hid it behind a wall by the dumpster.  After work, I went out by the dumpster and place my left hand on the hilt of the knife behind the wall where it could not be seen.  I was waiting for the bully to hit me so I could claim that I grabbed the discarded knife and stabbed him in self-defense.  The bully started to walk towards me and then suddenly stopped.  His face turned white.  I could tell that he was scared even though he still trying to talk like he was real tough.  I do not know if he saw an angel behind me or he was warned by the kind and gentle voice to not come near me or he really did not want to actually get in a fight or what.  Whatever the reason the prayers of my grandmothers were answered once again.

The last time I went into such a fit of rage was against this same bully.  That time I was so engulfed in rage that I did not care if we both were killed.  When we got out of Farmington and onto the stretch of US 62 that went into Prairie Grove I started to speed up as if I was going to pass him on the highway.  My plan was get next to him and push him off the road preferably into a telephone pole or the Illinois River.  However, he just kept driving faster and faster so that I could not get my car next to his.  By the time we got near the city limits of Prairie Grove we were going about 100 miles an hour which was a fast as my car would go.  I suddenly came to my senses and asked myself what was I thinking.  I slowed way down and felt very embarrassed about the whole thing.  My praying grandmothers had prevailed once again.

That incident really scared me.  The weight of the guilt and pain of not being tough enough to keep those bullies from destroying my family just never ended.  The anger and hatred of bullies just never seem to stop growing.  I could see that sooner or later I was going to kill someone or myself or maybe both.   I hated what I had become.   I cried to God to make me different inside and to show me how to deal with a bully.

I knew I had to change.  So when someone gave me a Good News translation of the Renewed Covenant (B'rit Chadashah aka New Testamenat) I read the whole thing in one marathon sitting.  Later I read it more slowly again over a period of several days.  I knew if there was any hope for me then it was in this book.

The Book of Truth (The Bible) was like a mirror and I did not like what I saw in it.  However, it also offered hope that I could become the good man that I wanted to be instead of the bad man that I seemed destined to become.  I saw the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) turn around people like Saul (Shaul aka Paul) from their hatred.  This book talked about his ability to deliver people from remaining as slaves to their sins (John 8:34-36). They would no more be able to continue in doing wrong than a good tree can bear bad fruit (Matthew 7:16-18).  In fact, it said that people who followed him would be slaves to doing what was right (Romans 6:18). 

This really got to me because I wanted to do what was right but always found myself doing the opposite.  I did not want to live the rest of my in fear of someday killing someone.  I wanted to forgive the bullies because otherwise the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) would not forgive me (Matthew 6:15).   I knew that I needed to change but I just did not have the ability to do so on my own strength (Romans 7:18).  So I went and asked the religious professionals to tell me what I needed to do so that the Man of Truth would change me like he changed Saul (Shaul aka Paul).

Things did not go like I had hoped they would. This idea that the Man of Truth would actually change someone today like he changed Saul (Shaul aka Paul) on the road to Damascus was very different than that what I had heard church people say for my whole life.   According to them Christians were just saved sinners that could not help but continuing in sin.   Yet I found many things in the Renewed Covenant that seemed to plainly say things the opposite of what I had been taught.

Whenever I asked the religious professionals about what I had read in those passages they always said that those passages meant something different than what was plainly written.  They just added to my confusion because they could not even agree on what those passages supposedly really meant instead of what was plainly written.  In short, I found a great conflict between the traditional views of the Baptist and Methodist churches that I grew up with and the contents of the Renewed Covenant.  The Book of Truth had warned me about religious professionals like them although I did not understand it at the time (1 Timothy 6:3-5).

Then I saw the Man of Truth alive and in action when he delivered my cousin from his sins.  I had always believed that he had died on a cross for me and that the Father of Truth had raised him from the dead.  I had went down to an altar when I eight years old in all sincerity to be saved from Hell. 

Yet it was very different when I saw the same Man of Truth that I had read about delivering people from sin in the Renewed Covenant deliver my cousin from his sin.  My mother had read me stories of the Man of Truth in the Children's Bible and I had read about him in the Renewed Covenant but this was different.  I had seen the Man of Truth when I was eight years old in a vision and a few times in my nightmares about the end times but this was different.  My suspicions that the Man of Truth was really still alive and active in the lives of people were suddenly confirmed in an undeniable way.

So I asked my cousin what was missing in my life that was preventing me from being delivered from my sins like he had been.  He said that it was not enough to believe that the Father of Truth was real because even the Spirits of Lies (devils aka demons aka gods aka unclean spirits) believe that (James 2:19).  He said that it was not enough to believe that the Man of Truth died on a cross and rose from the dead because even his enemies knew that (Matthew 28:5-11).  He said that I had to make the Man of Truth the Lord of my life by giving him control of every area of my life to be saved from Hell (Matthew 7:21-23).  He told me that if I did that then the Man of Truth would deliver me from my sins and not just the penalty of my sins (John 8:30-32).

The night that I decided to believe what was written in the Renewed Covenant instead of the religious traditions that many people in church believed was the night that everything changed.  The moment I surrendered control of everything in my life to the Man of Truth was the moment that all hatred for bullies left my life.  It was just like when The Man of Truth had turned Saul  (Shaul aka Paul) from his hatred of the Children of Truth (those who obey the Father of Truth because they love Him) to love for the Children of Truth after Saul (Shaul aka Paul) gave him control of his life (Acts 9:17-21).  The hatred for bullies was pushed out of my heart by the love that the Father of Truth has for bullies because He is love (1 John 4:8).  No one can hate people and also love Him (1 John 4:20).  I was now ready to learn how to deal with a bully.

I started reading the Book of Truth to learn the truth about everything.  The Book of Truth was a lot easier to understand once I had the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost) living on the inside of me (1 Corinthians 3:16).  That same kind and gentle voice that talked me out of committing so much evil from the outside was now instructing me from the inside (John 14:26).  There could be no better teacher because I was being taught by the author (2 Peter 1:19-21).  As I read the Book of Truth the Spirit of Truth guided me through it and taught me how to deal with a bully (John 16:13).

I was to do all that I could to not take vengeance on a bully (Romans 12:18).  When I tried to take vengeance myself I was in effect trying to steal from the Father of Truth (Romans 12:19).   Instead I was to let the Father of Truth take vengeance because He has promised to repay every bully for what they have done (Hebrews 10:30).

The Father of Truth can pay them back for their evil in ways that I never could.  He can take away their wealth (2 Chronicles 21:12-14).  He can take away their health (2 Chronicles 21:18).  He can give them constant misery (2 Chronicles 21:15).  He can destroy their family (2 Chronicles 21:16-17).  He can kill off their children (Ezekiel 23:46-47).  He can kill them off (2 Chronicles 21:19).  He can cast them into Hell where their suffering will never end (Luke 12:5).  There is nothing that anyone can do to compete with what He can do.

A bully might escape me but he can never escape the Father of Truth (Psalm 139:8-12).  The bully can hurt me back but he is more powerless against Him than his victims were powerless against the bully (Isaiah 40:17).  The bully has nothing to look forward to except a fearful future (Hebrews 10:31).

However, the Father of Truth takes no delight in destroying bullies (Ezekiel 18:32).  His love for the people that became a bullies is so great that He sacrificed His only begotten Son to save them (John 3:16).  He did not send His Son into the world to destroy bullies but to save them (John 3:17).  He desires for the bullies to repent and be saved (2 Peter 3:9).

In the same way I was to pray for those bullies to be saved (Matthew 5:44).  The Children of Truth are kind even to bullies because they are like their Father (Matthew 5:45).  The Children of Truth are to tell all people, even bullies, to repent so that they can be saved (Mark 16:15-16).

This is not to say that one should allow a bully to carry out their evil unopposed.  The strong are supposed to defend the weak so we should act when we see a bully attacking someone (Romans 15:1).  We can talk to the bully in a kind and gentle voice to diffuse the situation (Proverbs 15:1).  We can refuse to fight back even after the bully has hit us (Matthew 5:39).  The Man of Truth told us to get away from bullies instead of fighting when we can (Matthew 10:23).   We can avoid going where they are at just like he did (John 7:1).  The Father of Truth gave us authorities who are supposed to be a terror to bullies and we can always go to them if necessary (Romans 13:3-4).  In any case it is better to be wronged than to do what is wrong (1 Corinthians 6:6-8). It is one thing to defend yourself and others from a bully when you are backed into a corner but it is quite a different thing to seek to destroy the bullies afterwards.

So in short you show love to them instead of hate (Luke 6:27).  You do this by avoiding a fight with a bully if at all possible, giving the authorities a chance to rein in the bully, handing the bully over to the Father of Truth so He can deal with him as He sees fit and praying that the bully repents.  That is how to deal with a bully.

You might be wondering how dealing with bullies like this has worked out for me.  Most importantly it changed me into the good man that I always wanted to be (Galatians 5:22-23).  The truth is that I do not know what has happened to most of those bullies but I hope that they all come into the House of Truth.  I have been told by friends and family that live in the area where I grew up that several of those bullies died in accidents - actual accidents - while I was very far away.  I hope that they had came into the House of Truth before that happened.

If you are a bully then I am pleading with you to stop hurting yourself by bullying others.  You might not even live out half of your days (Psalm 55:23). You will be repaid for your bullying if you continue (Romans 2:5-6).

You might be a bully because you are burdened down with the heaviness of pain deep in your soul.  If so then come into the House of Truth by surrendering control of your life to the Man of Truth and you will find rest for your soul (Matthew 11:28-30).  He will not reject you if you come into the House of Truth (John 6:37).

If you hate bullies then I am pleading with you to stop doing so because you are hurting yourself.  Hatred of bullies will make you blind so that you cannot see the truth (1 John 2:11).  If you hate bullies then you are guilty of murder according to the Father of Truth and His life is not in you (1 John 3:15).  The Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan aka The Devil) is the father of every murderer (John 8:44).  You will not inherit the Kingdom of the Father of Truth in eternity if you do not let go of your hate (Galatians 5:19-21).  You will have your part in the Lake of Fire with the Father of Lies (Revelation 21:8).

So I am pleading with you to come into the House of Truth instead.  It is not about what someone else has done to you but rather what the Man of Truth did for you (1 Peter 3:18).  He will give you the strength to forgive the bullies if you will come into the House of Truth (Philippians 4:13).  He will fill your heart with love instead of hate when you come into the House of Truth (Romans 5:3-5).

This is not about anyone being strong enough to change on their own.  This is about the Man of Truth being strong enough to change you so you can come into the House of Truth (Romans 5:6-8).  He has not changed and still delivers those that come into the House of Truth from their sins (Hebrews 13:8).  Your part is to come into the House of Truth by submitting to him in total surrender because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from dead (Romans 10:9).

Come into the House of Truth.

The Monster Within

What is the most terrifying monster?

Many people dressed up as monsters each Halloween.  There are zombies, vampires, Frankenstein, werewolves, ghosts and the like.  People sometimes argue over which of these is scariest but the truth is that none of them are real.  So they cannot compare to a human monster like a child molester or Hitler.

People can sometimes escape these human monsters or at least avoid their presence for periods of time.  The terror of these human monsters will always come to an end.  So they cannot compare to the monster within.

There is no escaping a monster that lives inside of you.  Its presence is always there.  Its terror never ends.  You never get any rest from the monster within because it is with you day and night.  Every waking moment it is there trying to get you to do things that you despise doing and know will only bring you trouble later.  Every night it will haunt your dreams so much that you dread going to sleep.  There is no rest from the torment of the monster within.

I have been terrorized by the monster within.

The monster within was constantly trying to take control of my actions and haunting my dreams.  There was no rest from it and it would always inevitably wear down my resistance.   Sooner or later it would take me over from the inside.

I would have violent fits of rage that would spring up suddenly for no really good reason.  I would feel my body grow stronger and I just seemed to grow larger like Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk.  Like the Hulk I would go into a rampage of destruction breaking stuff and hurting people.  Then suddenly it would be over.

I was always sorry later for the damage that I had done.  My sorrow was genuine and my remorse was deep.  Still I knew that no matter how hard I tried the monster within would always eventually take over again.

The monster within cause me lived in constant fear but other people did not really understand it. Some bullies thought that I feared them but the truth is that I was terrified that one day I would lose complete control and kill one of them.

I was even more afraid of how I would act afterwards.  Perhaps I would be plunged into deep remorse and kill myself.  Perhaps I would be caught and end up on death row.  Most terrifying of all was the prospect of getting away with killing one bully and then turning into a serial killer of bullies.

When I was about twelve my mother sent me to a psychologist to help me overcome the monster within.  Miss Kim met with me every week at the Presbyterian church after school for months.  She did all she could but she was no match for the monster within.

She did give me one useful technique though and that was to chop wood when I felt the monster within trying to take over.  Sometimes I would split five ricks of wood in a single setting.  Of course the entire time I imagined that the logs were the heads of bullies but at least no one got hurt.  I would be exhausted when I was done chopping wood but I was still not free from the monster within.

I had a new terror when I got to the age where I was becoming interested in girls.  I was afraid that if I became involved with any girl that she might set off the monster within.  I was terrified that I might hurt or kill a girl that I deeply cared about.   So I did everything that I could to push girls away.  I insulted them, disrespected them and did everything that I could to make myself unattractive to them.  I had to protect them from the monster within.

However there was one girl that I was absolutely crazy about.  This created a terrible conflict for me because I wanted her to like me as much I liked her but I also wanted to protect her.  Then one day she told me that she thought I was sweet.  I knew what had to do and I did it.  I went out of my way to drive her away from me.  Finally she told me that she no longer like me even a little bit anymore.  It broke my heart but I knew that I had kept her from being harmed by the monster within.
 
Then suddenly I had a period without any nightmares or fits of rage.  It seemed as if the monster within had left for some reason.  However, it did not stay away long.  Then suddenly one day I could feel that it was back.  When it came back it seemed as if it had brought along some of its buddies.  Now I was no longer just afraid of killing someone in a fit of rage but also started becoming involved in all kinds of sexual perversion, doing things that could only be described as sick and twisted, and dabbling in occult activities like seances and astral projection.  I became obsessed with hunting out other boys that were alienated from their parents and getting them interested in the occult to some degree through role playing games.

Every since the monster within had moved back in with his buddies I had thought about killing myself to protect others from the monster within.  I attempted to do so several times but I would always hear this kind and gentle voice that would talk me out of doing so.  The kind and gentle voice would ask me if I really wanted to hurt my mother and other relatives by killing myself.  The kind and gentle voice would tell me if I did this then I would end up in Hell with no chance of escape.  The kind and gentle voice also gave me a reason to hope that I could be the good man that I wanted to be and truly be free from the monster within.

You see the monster within could never take me over completely because there was something that it was no match for - praying grandmothers.

Their prayers were the reason that I heard the kind and gentle voice that put to silence the monster within when it spoke.  They probably never knew all of the evil that their prayers had prevented me from doing.  They must have been tempted to quit praying when I just seemed to get worse and worse but they persevered.  They stood in the gap between me and the monster within.

They could not have known it but events were being set in motion to bring about the answer to their prayers.

I had a bed with a built in book shelf at the head of the bed.  My grandfather had given me a Bible with a zippered cover that I kept on that book shelf.  I had zippered it shut when he died and had not read it since.  Then one afternoon when I was taking a nap I was awakened by a loud thud.  That Bible was laying on my floor unzipped and opened to a passage with a list of death penalty sins in the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law).  I looked at the passage when I went to pick it up and I knew that I was guilty of more than one of those sins.  I knew that I deserved death for what I had done.

However, knowing the penalty of my sins was not enough to keep me from continuing in them.  I was still a slave to the monster within.

Then someone gave me a Good News translation of the Renewed Covenant (B'rit Chadashah aka New Testament) and I read all of it in one marathon sitting.  Later I read it again over a period of several days.  I really did not understand most of it but I did get three things out of it.  First I learned that I was a worse sinner than I thought because the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) was not just looking at my actions but at my intentions.  (Anyone that wants Him to judge them based on their intentions instead of their actions is lying to themselves about their intentions.)  Second I learned that He expected me to end my sins and do what was right instead.  Third I learned that the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) wanted all of me or none me.  He would rather me serve the Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan aka The Devil) full time than to serve him part time.  My performance of religious duties like going to church each weekend were not of any value unless I lived for him full throttle ever day of the week.

This troubled me greatly. I had tried to turn from doing the wickedness that I did not want to do but I could not seem to stop even though I often cried while doing those things.  I wanted to do the things that I knew were good but I kept finding myself not doing them when I had the chance.  So I found that I did the evil that I did not want to do and that I did not do the good that I wanted to do.  I simply could never be strong enough to conquer the monster within.

Then something happened to my cousin that changed everything.  My cousin had been heavily involved in drugs, alcohol, smoking and the like.  What I like to call garden variety sins.  I had already personally known more than five people that had died from drug related causes.  I have always been good at picking out patterns from repeated events so considering the hardness of the drugs he took I did not expect him to live to the age of twenty five.

Then suddenly, in the snap of a finger, he was completely free from all of it.  There was no twelve step program and he did not have any withdraws from quitting any of it.  It was as if the evil man that he had been was suddenly replaced with the good man that he now was. I knew that something supernatural was going on because no one that has been using heroine for years just gets up one morning and quits cold turkey with no withdraw symptoms.  This defied everything that I had been told and experienced but yet the living proof was right there in front of me.

The good news was that he said that what had happened to him could happen to anyone.  He told me that the Man of Truth had set him free from his own monster within.  He told me that the Man of Truth would do the same for me if I would meet his condition of total surrender.  He told me that if I would put the Man of Truth in charge of every area of my life then he would take the place of the monster within.  This was not a matter of me somehow being strong enough on my own.  This was a matter of the Man of Truth coming to live in me and he being strong enough to overcome the monster within.

For the first time I had a tangible reason for hope of being free from the monster within.  However, his explanation contradicted everything that every religious professional I had ever talked to had told me.  I had been told that Christians were just sinners saved by grace who were forgiven but still were slaves to a sin nature.  They had nineteen hundred years of church tradition to back up their doctrine while my cousin only had his testimony of what the Man of Truth had done for him.

So I watched my cousin to see if it was real and if it would last.  I even tempted him to go back to his old ways because I had to know if there was really hope for me.  It soon became obvious that there was no going back for my cousin.  (This was thirty years ago and he has never went back to any of it since that day.  He has truly been set free.)

So on November thirteenth nineteen eighty two, shortly after midnight, I pulled my car over to the side of the road and took the deal.  I cried like a baby while I listed each sin that I had committed, or had wanted to commit, while telling the Father of Truth how sorry I was. I told the Man of Truth that I no longer wanted to be in charge of my life and he was in charge of every area of my life from now on.  It was total surrender.

My cousin had told me if I would do this then I would be set free by the Man of Truth.  The good news is that it was true!  In a moment of time, in the twinkling of an eye, Jesus came into my life and I no longer had to fight the monster within.  It was suddenly all gone - the fits of murderous rage, the desire to hunt down and kill bullies, the sexual perversion, the pull of the occult on my soul, the sick and twisted acts, the constant thoughts of suicide along with everything else that came from the monster within and his buddies.

Instead I could hear that kind and gentle voice that had talked me out of so many terrible things, including suicide, now talking to me from the inside.  (I did not know that this kind and gentle voice was the voice of the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost) at the time.)  The moment that kind and gentle voice came in was the moment of the total eviction for the monster within.

(The guy that I was giving a ride to when I pulled over must have been pretty freaked out by all of this.  He had no idea of what I had done before this or what I been struggling against doing.  He did not know about the monster within until that moment.  The man that drove him home from that spot was not the same man that had pulled over to the side of the road.)

I had been a man possessed by the monster within but now I am a man possessed by the Man of Truth.  I have been set completely and utterly free from the monster within.  While I can be exposed to the same temptations on the outside there is no desire to do them on the inside.  I feel no more temptation to do those things when I am in the same situations that I was in before then I do to pick up dog poop and eat it when I see it on the ground.  I am dead to those things because the Man of Truth lives in me and he is dead to those things.  As long as I live a life of total surrender to the Man of Truth then there is no chance of return for the monster within.

The Good News is that the same thing can happen to you.  I have known about twenty five people that have had the same experience even if their monster within was different than mine.  It does not matter if your monster within is overcoming you so that you commit garden variety sins like fornication or alcoholism or putting on a religious show or less common struggles like being on the road to becoming a serial killer.   Anyone who will surrender control of every area of their life to the Man of Truth will be set free from the monster within.

Those of us that have been set free from the monster within are not unique or special in any way.  The Book of Truth (The Bible) tells what really happened to those of us that have been set free from the monster within.  Now it is time to look at the same events through the lenses of the Book of Truth.

The efforts of Miss Kim and others to help me were ineffective against the monster within because my problem was neither physical nor mental but rather spiritual (Ephesians 6:12).

When there is a monster within there are really have two forces at work to effect the behavior of the person.  First of all their spirit lives in a human body that has no desire to do what is right even if their spirit wants to do what is right (Romans 7:18).  The flesh wants to do every evil thing under the sun (Galatians 5:19-21).

Second of all there are Spirits of Lies (devils aka demons aka unclean spirits aka gods) that appeal to the nature of their flesh to do wrong just as the Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan aka The Devil) tried to tempt the Man of Truth to do wrong by appealing to the nature of his flesh (Matthew 4:1-3).

When someone yields to one of these Spirits of Lies by obeying them in disobeying the Father of Truth then they become slaves to that spirit who can lead them into certain types of sin (John 8:34).  This Spirit of Lies can then move in and try to take control of their body by constantly appealing to the nature of their flesh (Romans 6:16).  This Spirit of Lies that has moved in is the monster within.

These Spirits of Lies can cause everyone to be afraid of the people they inhabit (Matthew 8:28).  The monster within can fill a person with rage so that they hurt other people (Acts 19:14-16).

The monster within can make the person stronger than they are on their own when it gets control (Mark 5:2-4).  The monster within will cause them to isolate themselves, live strangely and hurt themselves (Mark 5:5). The monster within will drive them to attempt to commit suicide (Matthew 17:15-18).  The Spirits of Lies will cause those that they have completely take over to kill themselves when they have no more ability to resist their influence (Mark 5:11-13). 

Some Spirit of Lies can pass on information from other Spirits of Lies to the host person when they move in (Acts 16:16-19).  Those that have the monster within will resort to the occult that is filled with other people who are puppets controlled by their own monster within (1 Samuel 28:6-8). 

Sometimes the monster within will leave on its own if the conditions are not suiting it for some reason.  For example when I chopped wood until I was exhausted whenever I felt the violent fits of rage coming on.   However this absence of the monster within will only last for a little while like it did for me.  When the monster within comes back and finds that everything has been cleaned up and there is still a vacancy it will move back in with some of its buddies and the person will be worse off than before (Matthew 12:43-45).  Since I was still empty inside the monster within was able to move back in with his buddies and make me worse than I was before (Luke 11:24-26).  This is why people get clean through some sort of self-effort for a while and then return to their former behavior to only end up even worse off.

People can never be free from the monster within on their own strength.  They must be delivered from the terror of the monster within by the Man of Truth (Romans 7:24-25).

When my grandmothers prayed to the Father of Truth for my deliverance their prayers were not in vain because they had been made righteous by the Man of Truth (James 5:16).

Their prayers caused angels to be sent to literally wake me from my sleep with the Book of Truth and opened it to the Law of Truth.  If it were not for the Law of Truth then I would not know that I was in bondage to sin through the monster within (Romans 7:7).   It was the Law of Truth that made me aware of the true nature of the monster within and that I was deserving of death for giving in to it (Romans 7:8-11).   It was the Law of Truth that convicted me of my sin and show me my true condition (Romans 7:12-14).

While I knew what the Law of Truth said was good still it only made me aware of how wretched I really was (Romans 7:22-24).  The Law of Truth was powerless to make me able to obey it because my flesh was powerless against the monster within  (Romans 8:3).

Since the Law pointed me to the Man of Truth it caused me to seek after deliverance by reading the Renewed Covenant twice (Galatians 3:24).

However, I could not understand what I needed to do because the religious professionals that I had sought out contradicted what I read in the Renewed Covenant in order to maintain their own traditions (Mark 7:9).  Their traditions made the Word of Truth ineffective to deliver me because I could not believe what it said while also believing what they said (Mark 7:13).  They were religious but they denied the power of the Man of Truth to set people free from continuing in sin so I needed to stay away from them (2 Timothy 3:5).  They were powerless over the monster within because they clung to their traditions instead of believing the Word of Truth whereby they could truly know the Man of Truth (Acts 19:13-16).

However, three things were evident.

First, I would be judged on my intentions and not just my actions (Matthew 5:21-22).  In the eyes of the Father of Truth hating bullies was no different than murdering bullies (1 John 3:15).  Anyone who wants to be judged by their intentions is deceived about the condition of their own heart (Jeremiah 17:9-10).

Second, the Man of Truth demands that I repent and sin no more (John 8:10-11).  This is the same thing that His Father demands (Ezekiel 18:21).

Third, the Man of Truth wanted me either serving him full time or serving the Father of Lies full time instead of just playing church on the weekend (Revelation 3:14-16).  This was only reasonable since he had given everything at the cross (Romans 12:1).

This troubled me greatly.  I found myself unable to do the good things I want to do but instead doing the evil things that I did not want to do because I was still under the control of the monster within (Romans 7:15-17).  No matter how hard I try to do good I just ended up doing evil (Romans 7:19-21).  The conflict between what I want to do and what I ended up doing when I knew that it would lead to my demise made me miserable (Romans 7:22-24).  This kind of double mindedness made me unstable in everything that I did (James 1:8).  I was tormented by a constant fear of completely giving in to the monster within because I did not have perfect love (1 John 4:18).

Then I saw proof that the Man of Truth was alive and living in my cousin.  The deliverance of my cousin from his own monster within was a supernatural sign from the Father of Truth that I could not deny which made evident His wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:22).  The change in my cousin was living proof of the power of the Man of Truth to deliver people from the monster within that I had about read in the Renewed Covenant (2 Corinthians 3:2-4).

My cousin told me that the Man of Truth would set me free from the monster within if I would submit to giving him control of every area of my life in total surrender - which is what it really means to be his disciple (John 8:30-32).  If I became his disciple then I would have to put the Man of Truth in front of everyone else and everything else including my very life (Luke 14:26-27).  I was told to count the cost before I made such a commitment because it would be of no value unless I was willing to give everything (Luke 14:28-30).  I simply would not be accept as his disciple unless I was willing to forsake everything else in total surrender (Luke 14:33-35).  Total surrender to the Man of Truth is the only way to be free from the monster within (Romans 6:15-18).

I watched for my cousin to see if he to return to his old ways.  He never went back to his old ways because the Man of Truth had really set him free (John 8:34-36).

So I took the deal.  The moment I submitted to the Man of Truth in total surrender the monster within became terrified because that Spirit of Lies knew he was coming (Mark 5:6-7).  When the Man of Truth came into my life the monster within and its buddies went out (Mark 5:8-10).  When I chose total surrender to the Man of Truth I was set free from the monster within (Romans 6:16-18).  The Spirit of Truth came in and forced out the monster within (Romans 8:15-17).  The perfect love that the Man of Truth had ended the tormenting fear that came from the monster within (1 John 4:17-19).

In that moment I began to truly live instead of just occupying space and sucking air (John 5:24).  I became a new man with new desires and all of the desire to do the former things had passed away (2 Corinthians 5:17).  I was dead to sin and alive to the Father of Truth (Romans 6:10-12). The Spirit of Truth began changing my thoughts, attitudes, and actions (Galatians 5:22-23).  I no longer hated bullies but instead was overwhelmed with concern about telling them how they could be delivered from their own monster within (1 John 3:14).

Just as the monster within had kept me from doing what was pleasing to the Father of Truth so now the Man of Truth keeps me from doing what is pleasing to the Father of Lies (Romans 6:20-22).   This is not a matter of me being strong enough on my own to meet the righteous demands of the Law of Truth but of the Spirit of Truth giving me the strength to do so (Romans 8:2-4).  No one can do so in their own strength (Romans 8:6-8).  It is living a life of total surrender to obey the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost) that gives me that strength to live as a Child of Truth (Romans 8:12-14).  This causes the Man of Truth to live inside me instead of the monster within (Galatians 2:19-21).

The monster within can only return to someone that is empty inside (Matthew 12:44-45).  When I submitted to the Man of Truth in total surrender then the Spirit of Truth came in so that I was no longer empty inside (Romans 8:9-11).  That Spirit of Lies cannot return because the Spirit of Truth that lives in me is greater than even the Father of Lies (1 John 4:4).

As long as I continue in total surrender to the Man of Truth by hearing and obeying the Spirit of Truth then I will not return to the behavior that allowed that Spirit of Lies to become the monster within (Galatians 5:16-18).

The Good News is that I am nothing special.  It does not matter whether your monster within drives you to an addiction to pornography or alcohol or drugs or putting on a religious show or even becoming a serial killer.  It is not about your abilities or your worthiness.  It is about the ability and worthiness of the Man of Truth.

He will deliver you from your monster within if you submit to him in total surrender (Matthew 16:24-25).   He will make you worthy to participate in his plan like he did Mary Magdalene after he delivered her from her own monster within and its buddies (Luke 8:1-3).  He made her so clean that she was the first person that he revealed himself to after his resurrection (Mark 16:9).  There is no condemnation for those that submit to the Man of Truth in total surrender (Romans 8:1).

The Father of Truth will deliver anyone from their monster within if they will surrender control of every area of their life to the Man of Truth (Acts 10:34-35).  It does not matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile (Romans 2:10-12).  Whether or not you are delivered from the monster within depends upon your willingness to submit to the Man of Truth in total surrender (Colossians 3:24-25).

Total surrender will cost you something in this life or maybe even everything in this life.  You will lose relationships with other people and maybe even your property (Matthew 19:29).  The religious professionals may kick you out of your congregation and persecute you in their religious zeal (John 16:2).  You will suffer some type of persecution from other people (2 Timothy 3:12).

However, you should come into the House of Truth and take the deal.  What good is for you to keep running your own life just to lose everything that you thought you had gained (Matthew 16:26-27)?  If you insist on running your own life then the monster within will bring you to ruin (Mark 8:34-36).  The Father of Truth has graciously given you an opportunity to be free from the monster within before it destroys you completely (Romans 6:23).  What you lose in this life due to total surrender cannot compare to what you will gain by being free from the monster within (Romans 8:15).

All you need to do to come into the House of Truth where you will be free from the monster within is submit to the Man of Truth in total surrender because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:8-10).

Come into the House of Truth.