Lesson Three: There really is such a thing as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They must invariably employ disguises—look out for them.
The biblical phrase “Wolves in sheep’s clothing” refers to certain kinds of people who ultimately behave as devouring wolves, but don’t do so immediately. In the meantime they go well-disguised under convincing outer coverings. They pretend to be what they are not; thus it’s essential for them to use such disguises.
In the cult I experienced such a thing—a wolf in sheep’s clothing. When I finally saw it (it took a long time), I was astonished that I had been so taken in, and outraged, too: “How could I have been so betrayed, so wronged, so fooled!”
You might think that if you were ever to encounter such a wolf in disguise, you would instantly recognize him and, being alarmed, hurry away. But these wolves are disguised really well—it’s not evident at all that you’re dealing with such a creature. You won’t find many people who see them so clearly that they say right away, “But what big teeth you have!” The big teeth are really going to be hidden. Such wolves in disguise don’t readily throw off their sheepskins. That’s how the cult works—it’s all managed by means of covering things up, by acting under disguises.
Furthermore—and this is essential to understand—this wolf doesn’t think of himself as a wolf, at least not most of the time. True, he knows he’s not what he seems, but he deludes himself by believing he has a special truth that’s doing all who follow him a lot of good. And when he is made aware that he’s not entirely who he says he is, he says to himself that still, he’s not as bad as all that. He’s a very good and brave fellow—a hero, even. He’s persuaded himself that it’s just his enemies who call him a wolf, and why should they have the right to define him? He’s just terribly misunderstood! This is what he tells the sheep, too, among whom he goes in disguise: “Some will say I’m a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but I’m not! I’m a sheep, just like you! You can trust me! Listen to me: ‘Baaa, Baaa.’ See? I’m being greatly wronged by those who call me a wolf!”
And there’s also something important to keep in mind: he has learned somewhere back in his past not to pay attention to anything like a guilty conscience. Instead he nurses hurts—injustices done to him, failure of others to recognize and appreciate him. But he’ll show them! Or she will (because there are female wolves in sheep’s clothing, too).
The wolf in sheep’s clothing may delude himself into thinking he’s really a sheep, and yet if you give him time he’ll still devour some of the flock.
Someone from a cult—he or she may not be a wolf at all, but can be someone really taken in and fooled by one who’s walking around in disguise—will often mostly unwittingly “front” for the wolf and be used to take the unaware in—to take in someone new, someone like you. The initially taken-in person can often out-argue you and be eminently reasonable in seeking to persuade you to “Come and see,” to learn this or find out that, to “Try out our free seminar,” to “Visit our commune for a party or a meal,” “Have this nice peanut butter and jelly sandwich and here’s a cup of coffee, too!” Believing he or she is leading you into a sheep fold and not a wolf’s den, those taken in before you will now help you be “taken-in.” The “taken-in” can be very good at taking in others because they themselves have been sincerely taken in. I know, for I took in a number of others who became “Children of God” and I thought I was doing a good thing! I believed in it—strongly, deeply, sincerely and didn’t think of it as a come-on at all–but I’d been fooled and I was sincerely leading others unwittingly into the same errors into which I was so thoroughly entangled.
You see, this sort of come-on can be pulled off very successfully because those applying it are sincerely deceived themselves by the head man. This is not to say that there are no apprentice wolves going around in such groups as well, disguised among the sheep, dressed in sheep’s clothing. But many, even most, are sheep themselves who have been fooled into serving the wolf who has fooled them. And their sincerity allows them to come-on with persuasiveness and incredible intensity.
Our leader in the Children of God by 1976 was asking all the young women among us to dress up in seductive clothes and go out to flirt with guys, and ultimately sleep with them to draw them in, to convert them to a new way of thinking—our leader’s way of thinking—all in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s a pretty dumb sheep, to allow herself (or himself, for the guys were involved in all this, too) to do such things against much common sense, much cultural and religious tradition, and against what even some of the simplest persons’ notions are of what the Bible actually teaches. But it was done just the same, all at the urging of a most persuasive wolf using the most engaging flatteries as he was disguised as a sheep–or rather, disguised as a shepherd of sheep.
David Berg, aka Moses David, a supposed “shepherd of sheep,” taught the girls in the group that sleeping with guys to help them believe in Jesus was a biblical thing to do. Sheep can be pretty dumb, but with glittering words and flattery, he managed to persuade us all–at least for a while–that this was a good thing for sheep to do.
Our leader got his way with us because he so skillfully disguised himself with words and with the people he’d persuaded. What sorts of things did he use to perfect his disguise? He used flattering words to great effect, appealing to our wish to be recognized, respected, important, heroic. These kept us from looking too critically at him–indeed, we only wanted to look flatteringly back at him! He flattered us by telling us how special we were, and we wanted very much to believe him. He also used novel interpretations of the Bible to appeal to our pride, our hunger to be regarded as on the cutting edge of important things–a “Revolution for Jesus.” And he also dressed himself, as it were, with sweet, sincere, attractive young men and women who trusted him and who’d “bought” his talk about his being God’s “Endtime Prophet” and our being God’s “Green Berets,” His very special ones. All these things added up to a deeply convincing outfit of “sheep’s clothing.” He looked so good because the disguise was so good!
So just how thorough was it?
It was so persuasive that Moses David, our leader, could successfully urge the young women in our group to give sexual favors to men not their husbands “in the name of the Lord.” And he suggested the guys in the group receive such favors from the girls, and also use similar tactics regarding women outside of the group. Our “shepherd” suggested the sheep allow themselves to be sexually devoured, saying it was all a sacrifice in the name of God’s love. He told us we no longer were “under the laws of God,” except for the “law of love.” We were thus “sexually liberated.” But really it was all done through convoluted reasoning based on profoundly wrong misinterpretations of the Bible and through the deepest moral compromise and confusion.
So one of the lessons I have started to learn through my cult expereience is that wolves in sheep’s clothing really do exist. When Jesus Christ originated the saying in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:15), he wasn’t kidding. He put it this way, to be precise: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.”
So how do you keep away from a wolf disguised as a sheep? How do you recognize a group in the grip of someone who, in disguise, is pretending to be very good, but who is really very bad?
How, if, say, when you’re feeling lost and blue and needy, do you know to resist a terrifically good argument presented with oh-so-much patience and supposed love, or a terrifically seductive girl who suddenly takes a surprising interest in you, an alluring lass wearing the clothes chosen for the purpose? Or, if you’re a lonely or hurting young woman, how do you know you ought to treat some good-looking, seemingly nice guy who courts you from out of the blue with great intensity and in the name of some noble cause or faith? You see it’s not so very hard to get fooled, right?
And little would you know that this person might be leading you into your being entangled in a trap and ultimately devoured spiritually, emotionally, morally, sexually. And consider this, too, that all the while the one making the case that will lead to your entanglement may not even really know what he or she is doing, since they’ve given up thinking for themselves and are acting at the behest of a wolf who has persuaded this dumb sheep to seductively do his bidding—and sincerely to enjoy doing it.
David Berg, claiming to be a Christian, led the Children of God to use such means, means utterly condemned in the Bible. He adeptly argued that doing so was not a violation of God’s law. Our leader told us, “You’re free to do this, you’re free from the laws given in the Bible so that instead you can follow ‘the law of love.’” He wasn’t about to consider the actual truth: that following the laws in the Bible is to follow a path that leads to life, and that substituing our subjective, personal feelings about what the “law of love” meant was to take a road to disaster.
It is true that one cannot earn pardon for one’s sins by means of obeying God’s laws, not the least reason for this is because no one can really manage to keep them, a fact that was intended to lead a person to his or her knees and repent for his or her constant failure to be as good as we were meant to be! But does the fact that’s plainly illustrated in the Bible–that forgiveness for sin is freely given through faith and not by keeping the law–show that Jesus didn’t mean what he said in the Sermon on the Mount when he “turned up the heat” on the Ten Commandments by making them even tougher than the versions found in Moses’ writings?
For why did Jesus say that even if you just look at a woman in lust, that is adultery, when before the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses seemed to say you actually had to commit the act of adultery to be guilty?
In the Children of God cult we didn’t know–and our supposed shepherd didn’t tell us–that Christians are not freed from God’s laws, they simply are not justified by means of keeping them or condemned when they fall, so long as they repent and turn to the way of the one who perfectly kept all the laws, that is, Jesus. Believers in him are justified by what Christ did in paying for all those sins on the cross.
We didn’t know that now the Christian seeks to keep the law—not committing adultery, for example–out of gratitude and love for what God has done for him or her, and not as a way to justify himself or herself. It is for the sake of his love, because he has given us power to say “no” to breaking God’s law, that we now seek to follow all the loving rules God has given.
Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mount as depicted in a Mosaic in a church in Ravenna, Italy. Did he spend so much effort explaining God’s commandments and laws because his followers weren’t to heed them?
The point is, the laws are still in effect, only our relationship to them has changed. Christ hasn’t set men free to make it okay to sleep with all the girls! Nor did he come to set the girls free to sleep with all the boys! Let me be perfectly candid: Moses David was a false teacher, a false prophet—someone who taught lies and someone unworthy of being trusted and followed. But the wolves that cult leaders actually are is never plainly evident because they hide behind very good disguises.
In the Children of God’s case we were badly deceived sheep behaving according to the dictates of a very persuasively disguised wolf. And the thing of it is that our leader—David Berg–was all the more persuasive in his disguise because he’d persuaded himself that he really was a prophet of God bringing the truth to his followers (though perhaps in some dark corner of his heart there were the remains of the doubts he’d long ago banished there).
And it’s also true that we were all willingly, even eagerly persuaded. Cults require seductive, wolf-like leaders, and those who are readily given to follow such persons.
The stock and trade of the cult leader and the cult itself is the disguise, and it’s often not easy to see through it, especially because it’s sewed together with a very good measure of sincere self-delusion on the part of leader and followers. It’s not just purely cynical abuse and misuse of others; it’s sincerely deluded abuse and misuse of others.
To avoid being fooled–or to escape being caught if one has been fooled–a person needs to fight to be alert, to sit up, to take notice, to watch and not just lie down unthinkingly.
Believe me, the term “wolf in sheep’s clothing” represents a real phenomenon, though as I say, such wolves delude themselves into thinking they’re something other than the frauds they actually are.
But give them time and the truth will “out” and then at least some followers will realize that this supposed shepherd of the sheep is estranged from the truth and is a real beast—and not a nice kind of beast, either.
So what can one do? Sadly, one must be aware that there exist men and women who are ready to deceive you and who are very skilled at appearing unlikely to do any such thing. One must try to keep one’s eyes open to see beyond appearances. Be on the lookout for even the slightest glimpse of a fang! And if you see one, don’t tell yourself you imagined it. Look again!
For those who have been caught, as I was, it will be hard to admit you’ve been had, but when your realize it, look to the highest thing you know for strength–be it one’s sense of integrity or respect for that which is most noble, or be it the love and mercy of God. And so empowered, walk out. It won’t be easy psychologically and emotionally, even if the physical act of leaving is manageable. But God is merciful, and though the cult and its leader will deny it, there is light and life outside of it, and from one’s perspective, once outside, one can look back and be grateful to have escaped such darkness!
