From a netfriend:

Hi,

Somewhere in your article about God’s Generals, I saw the term “unsavoury characters” being used to refer to people like William Branham and others. I’m not a big follower of these people in any way, but I do find it odd that you would classify these people as such, even if they did make some really bad mistakes. Concerning Roberts Liardon, I find it sad that Charisma Magazine had to broadcast something so sensitive. I understand that it’s important to expose evil, (especially if someone is claiming to serve God but habitually, without remorse, making a continuing practice of living in sin) but sometimes people fall into sin temporarily because the devil sets up a trap to destroy them and discredit their message. It doesn’t mean they should be trashed and written off. If we look in the Bible, King David is referred to by God as a man after His own heart. He made some tremendous mistakes, but nevertheless, God saw beyond that because David really loved God and had a truly repentant heart. A look through the Bible reveals many flaws in God’s great people of faith…look at Samson, look at poor Elijah, being so discouraged and afraid that he became severely depressed. Often times, somebody can do many good things, but as soon as they do one wrong thing, all the good is forgotten and everybody talks about the bad thing. What would Jesus do? He would desire to restore the person, so that they could get up, brush themselves off, and go and sin no more. So Roberts fell. So has every Christian to some degree, whether it be adultery (thinking it is the same as doing it, in God’s books) backbiting, or judging. Who went home justified before the Father… the self-righteous Pharisee or the repentant guy who was deeply aware of his own sin?

I really don’t mean to sound harsh here. I just want to say that we are members of the Body, and we need to build one another up; when one falls, we need to have the heart of Jesus and care enough to intercede and if necessary, fast for the person. We need to love our neighbor as ourselves. Love covers over a multitude of sins. Love restores the person to recover after a fall and make it in the end, because that is the heart of God for all people. To the people at Charisma magazine, did you weep that one of your brothers fell into such a sin? Did you truly intercede from the heart for him as the Lord would have you do? Please don’t kick people when they are down. It grieves the Father’s heart.