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Table of Contents Chapt.
Pg #
1
And God Says...
9
2
The Message...
19
3
The Stages...
33
4
Forgiving...
53
5
Forsaking...
63
6
Forgetting...
73
7
The Press...
79
8
The Conclusion ot the Matter
87
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Introduction Please prepare yourself for a life-changing experience, for these next few pages will close the past, make clear the present, and open the future. The Lord answered me some time ago concerning my question as to why people are constantly dealing in the past, struggling with the present, and have not a hint as to the future. The answer from the Lord was simple:, “Too many open doors.” Beware of open doors, for they release the echoes of your past and draw you back to a time and place you’ve once endured. You must close the doors on the echoes of the past in order to enjoy the future that God has for you.
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Chapter 1
And God Says… I’m counseling this thirty- or forty-year-old, and he is behaving like a five-year-old, going through all these adolescent changes. I’m wrestling back and forth with what this is, and God says, “He has to close doors.” People go through different stages in life. They’re struggling with relationships as a husband or wife, or they are feeling they have failed in this or that area of life. I’m thinking, “Those are very simple things because you have to first deal with yourself.” Nevertheless, I’m listening, and the more I listen, it appears that I’m talking to a child rather than to an adult. So, what’s going on with him? What God says to me is, “You are talking to a child. He did not close off that area of his life and now, even though he’s an adult in years, there is still a child 9
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Bishop William L. Washington
inside of him who is not quieted.” He is disquieted because of the fact that he never dealt with the issues from his childhood. Ages one to five: Many people call these the “formidable years.” Those are the years the kids are learning; learning behavior and all the different things that pertain to life very early. Now, if that child has been abused in any way or that child has been neglected in any way … neglect itself is abuse. It’s not just smacking a child, burning a child, cursing a child, or locking them in closets, but abuse is also neglecting to do what you should do. I’m not necessarily talking about food and clothing, but nurturing them with love and kindness. So now, this man, who does not know how to receive love, can’t receive it from his wife. This woman who doesn’t know how to receive love can’t receive it from her husband. So here they are, like little children, screaming and whining and I’m saying, “You need to shut up and grow up!” The problem is how can you grow beyond who you are? We have to grow the person, not just say Grow up! The way a person must grow is that they need to be able to close it down. What were you dealing with 10
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Closing Doors
between the ages of one to five that has you acting as if you were still one to five? What was going on between six and twelve years of age, and so forth? If they’re not allowed to close the door to these different stages, through counseling, prayer, or someone just helping pull it out of them for deliverance, then I am dealing with the child in them until they free themselves by speaking up and speaking out. Many times, confessing what happened and how they felt will cause them to free themselves. Maybe no one did wrong intentionally. The child could have overheard a conversation about their mother or father. They could have seen something. It’s not always something that’s been done to them, but there are things they become aware of that maybe they couldn’t handle. Now, the least little sign of someone touching that area could cause them to go off. What God is saying is, They have to close the door to those areas in their life that were not dealt with. That’s why I believe in allowing children to talk. I believe in even allowing children to deal with death. How many adults can’t deal with death now because they weren’t able to deal with it as children? They weren’t allowed to go to the funeral. Nobody sat down and explained what happened to 11
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Grandma or what happened to Grandpa. Nobody explained to them what death really means. The Lord is saying, There are different stages. Somewhere between one and five, you have to close down. That child needs to clear out. Somewhere between six and twelve, clear out. Somewhere between thirteen and nineteen, clear out. Somewhere between twenty and twenty-five, clear out. To “clear out” means to talk about those things and issues and shut them down. There are too many doors open. You think you’ve gone on with your life, but then you hear your past calling you. What is that? Those are the echoes of your past, and they have now entered into your present. If you don’t watch it, they will reach into your future, and many times, block you from becoming who you are to be, or block you from doing what you are to do, or from having what you are to have. That is why we must close these doors and we have to deal with the issues. I’m not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or some worldclass therapist, but my point is, how many times have we heard on the news, read in the newspaper, read in a book, or seen this documentary show about this person who was this mass murderer or this person 12
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who lived a double life or had multiple personalities or is schizophrenic? They have all these personalities, these split personalities, in fact, because they are many different people. You’re this one- to five-yearold, this six- to twelve-year-old, this adolescent, this teenager struggling, this young adult and now you’re this married person who is all of these other people. You’re this thirty- or forty-year-old and you’re still all these people. You have multiple personalities, and any one of them can come out at anytime. You have to deal with each one of these stages of life and shut the door. When you do it in a spiritual sense, you shut the door, and then God seals the door. He seals it off. He seals it just as He sealed the door in the days of Noah, and when the flood is over, you step into a new world. That’s what we need: a new world. People need a brand-new start, and the church has to provide much of that, but the real victory comes in when you do it as an individual. You must begin to shut down the past; you’ve got to lock it down, and you’ve got to walk it out. As we go into this, one of the main things you have to learn is to forgive what has happened in the past. When you forgive a thing, you will enable 13
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