18/11/65
To Brian M Deck
Motueka
I have sinned against you and your wife and household and the saints and the assembly in Motueka at the meetings in May. My course has not been in the Spirit but in the flesh and there has been much transgression, but the things that weigh on me are these.
The way in which the status and exercises of the assembly in Motueka were set aside and not given any place to.
Much that was offensive in speaking and unbecoming was allowed in the meetings. I think in particular of the way I spoke to one brother concerning his contribution to the special collection. This was wholly anti-Christian and grievously injurious to the brother.
There were references to two other brothers concerning their private income, one for being small and one for being large. Besides a direct transgression against the brothers, it brought in the spirit of the world and commerce and worldly advantage and the ridiculing of a saint of God.
I am ashamed of the way I spoke to your wife at the family table. I was expressing my judgement which I now see to have derived from the flesh and not of the Spirit. I’d transgressed most grievously.
I transgressed against you too in having part in commercial meetings in your house at the time of the meetings. It is clear too that the interference in your business matters was a transgression on my part.
I am appalled as I think of the kind of [………….] I have allowed in the assembly and among the saints in contrast to the spirit of the men who have laboured and lived among you and live yet.
I am horrified at the dishonour to the Lord and to His assembly as the kind of alien spiritual conduct this has been so active in the (holy) things of God. I am grieved at the pain and suffering I have inflicted on the saints.
I am under discipline for my course but I desire to convey something to you to put right in some way the awful wrong I have done.
(Signed) John S Hales
Bracketed words did not copy clearly
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This is a genuine copy of the original letter.
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