Stephen,
It sounds like they manipulated you guys in that Sunday school class. They had no right to say what they did. Now, because of their words, you feel this horrible guilt over a death that you in no way could have prevented. In fact, I would be so bold as to say that that kind of 'wisdom' IS from below. Shame on them.
Let me show you what I think they did to you:
In the middle of the eighties, several people in a Sunday school class at a
church that I used to attend heard someone claiming to want help and saying that the thing should not be told
This is nothing more than the Code of Silence (or as I prefer to call it, The Gag Rule).
and that saying or doing what is not true and lawful would not be needed and that this person had the pastor's permission to do this and that this person was not mixed up with arts from below.
Simply put, they lied to you (with the possible exception being the part about the pastor's permission, but no godly pastor would condone such a thing).
Staying implied consent. Then followed the thing. After that came what could almost not be heard, that if the thing be told, then someone would no longer be with us.
"Then followed the thing. After that..." Notice they didn't tell you everything when they FIRST came up with the suggestion. They waited til those who objected outright were out of the room. Then, after it was too late for you to turn back, they hammered home their Gag Rule by adding to it. This is the progressive revelation tactic we used in the assembly. We were never told up front about all the ramifications of our total commitment to the assembly system. They told us only when they knew we were too committed to turn back.
At a later date this person got a job in the church office. My grief and shame is that someone close who knew this person's parents at another church heard the thing from me in the early nineties and is not with us anymore. The departure seemed natural at the time, but I learned of other possibilities later. I need prayer.
----Stephen M. Fortescue
It is they who will suffer grief and shame over this. Be at peace. You are safe in the arms of Jesus. He is not angry at you. You are free. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
I hope this helps.
Jack
