David Berg
Tenerife, 6/4/75 DO 1436
1. I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW SO MANY PEOPLE CAN BE SO ABSOLUTELY INSENSITIVE TO SPIRITS! You ought to pray for the gift of discernment! We are in a battle & we can't go playing around with the Devil! The first time I ever saw Gen's picture I knew she was really weird, yet some of you said, "She's just a poor innocent‚ she doesn't know what's going on!" Well, she may not know what's going on‚ but somebody does! And the trouble is‚ she's been covering it.
2. THERE'S ONLY ONE WAY YOU CAN HANDLE THE ENEMY & THAT'S TO DECLARE ALL–OUT WAR & run him right out of the woods & from attacking all who're there, & either he will then do something or not. As long as he can hide out & play footsy-footsy & keep you in ignorance of what he's up to, he'll be just as good as gold! I've seen some of these cases just be absolutely exemplary models of behaviour until you catch them! They can be geniuses & make themselves damn useful & you think you can't do without them—until they get there in a position of importance, & then they're in a position to throw a monkey wrench in the machinery—and they do!
3. I JUST WISH I HAD LISTENED TO THE WORD OF THE LORD instead of taking some people's recommendations. Did you know that both of the babies that she took care of before this one had [problems]?
4. SHE TRIES TO MINIMISE HER CONNECTION WITH WITCHCRAFT & say, "Oh well, I never got very much into it." She was a witch whether she knew it or not! Because that was the first thing I ever got off her when I saw her picture, & I didn't even want to think about it. Lord help us!
5. I WANT EMAN TO BE IN A GOOD QUIET ATMOSPHERE WITH GOOD STRONG SPIRITS THAT LOVE THE LORD & KNOW HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL!—He needs peace of mind, peace & quiet without that horrible distraction! Eman is a sensitive receiver. I don't think he's to blame at all, except he gets a little upset, but you can't blame him under those circumstances. Like any artist he is sensitive, so he picks up those vibes pretty easily. In making that picture he was just like spiritwriting! She's like an antenna‚ & he was getting those very bad vibes off of her that guided his hand to paint that picture! (Chinese demon mask on the Great Queen's empty throne!—Prophetic! Did Rachel visit that Chinese Exhibit?)
6. YOU DON'T GET RID OF THOSE THINGS VERY EASILY UNLESS YOU CUT THEM ALL OUT! Look at David Hoyt! And the worst thing in the World in a case like that is pride—pride or jealousy—where they don't want to expose themselves, don't want to be exposed, don't want to confess—& quite obviously she hasn't told us everything.
7. EVERYBODY HAD THE HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION & SAID, "Oh she's wonderful, she's the sweetest thing, she's good with children, she's so sacrificial!"—Everybody just raved about her! But it pays to listen to the Lord! I don't see how so many good spiritual people could be so blind & insensitive in discerning of spirits!
8. AFTER ALL, EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE SPECIAL GIFT OF DISCERNING SPIRITS, YOU HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT, & THE HOLY SPIRIT OUGHT TO HAVE WARNED YOU! You should have had some kind of check‚ some sensibility, some feeling! Some of you are apparently just absolutely totally insensitive to things like that, you can't even tell! The first time I ever looked at her picture I knew there was something terribly wrong with her! She had a terrible nervous breakdown in Bromley & had to be sent to Hollingbourne! You haven't heard the whole story?
9. LET ME TELL YOU, BELOVED, AS LEADERS, WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T TRUST JUST THE ONE PERSON'S SIDE OF THE STORY—YOU'D BETTER BE SURE YOU GET THE OTHER GUY'S SIDE TOO! This poor guy Simeon, whoever he was‚ who was working with her over there in Ireland, he probably had some pretty good reason for some of the things he did, telling her she should stop talking in tongues & stop prophesying! He sort of put the clamps on her. (Maria: But she stuck around & he's the one that left!) Most of those devils don't want to leave! After all, they can cause a helluva lot more trouble if they stay! They never want to leave, you've got to practically throw them out on their ear!
10. WE WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH & BLOOD BUT AGAINST SPIRITUAL POWERS, WICKED SPIRITS IN POWERFUL PLACES! (Eph.6:12). Well, I've often heard of demons giving you their name, but very few times have I heard of them painting their pictures, it's kind of rare! But I guess he was a little conceited & figured since he had such a topnotch artist as Eman around, he'd like to have his portrait painted!—Especially if it was going to go out in our Letter! He wanted to get his picture in the paper, how about that! I guess he thought he was pretty smart & that we'd never notice it, but that's the first thing I saw when I looked at that picture. I was dumbfounded also by the people who didn't see it!
11. I'LL TELL YOU, BELOVED, WHEN YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU OUGHT TO SAY SOMETHING! This business of keeping things to yourself because you're afraid to say anything, my Lord! The Devil can get away with a helluva lot if you don't mention the fact that you're seeing something a little strange or peculiar or something's not right! PYJ! TYL! Bless & keep us, Lord! We plead Thy blood over Thy children today! We're exposing the Enemy & his dirty tricks & he doesn't like to get run off!
12. I'LL TELL YOU, IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU LEADERS NEED TO PRAY FOR IN THIS KIND OF WORK, IT'S GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT WHICH ARE NOT QUITE SO OBVIOUS, NOT QUITE SO MANIFEST. Most of the Pentecostals are always praying for the ones that are the most obvious, the most manifest, the most noisy & the most showy, so they can show off their spiritual power! I'll tell you right now, as I have said before‚ the gifts most necessary for spiritual leadership are the least obvious! Do you hear the wind making music? (Wind chimes chiming!) It reminds me of how the wind blows on some people & they make music!—The wind blows on other people & they just make noise!
13. IF YOU HAVE YOUR BIBLE YOU CAN TURN TO 1st CORINTHIANS 12—Not 13 this time! Chapter 13 is the one we all know‚ 12 is the one you leaders ought to know! How many Pentecostals did you ever hear praying for wisdom & knowledge‚ tarrying for the gifts of wisdom & knowledge? I can't even remember one! They're always tarrying for the gift of tongues, the loudest, noisiest & the most obvious, & yet the one that's practically on the bottom of the list! But because it's the most obviously supernatural, they can show off more with that one than any other. I guess that's why the Lord didn't give it to me for so many years.
14. IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU LEADERS NEED‚ THE FIRST THING YOU NEED IS WISDOM & KNOWLEDGE! What is wisdom?—How to use the knowledge of God! Our dear brother Aaron had a lot of knowledge—he was a walking Bible, warrior of the Word—but he didn't have much wisdom & he didn't know how to use it except when he was really inspired & led of the Spirit!
15. SO "WITH ALL THY GETTING, GET WISDOM!" (Pr.4:7). Amen? Whatever you get, ask God for wisdom! I remember when I was just a little boy in Sunday School I heard that story about Solomon, & I asked the Lord for wisdom ever since. I don't know, it seems like I sure need a whole lot more, but I guess I've got a little anyhow, thank the Lord! Lord help us to have wisdom, that's how to use the knowledge of God, the facts you have, how to use what you already know.
16. ONCE YOU'VE GOT WISDOM‚ THE LORD MIGHT BE ABLE TO TRUST YOU WITH A LITTLE MORE KNOWLEDGE, but if you give some people too much knowledge without wisdom they invent atom bombs with their knowledge, & go shooting off into space to the moon while millions are starving to death!
17. WHEN JEANNE DIXON WAS ALL WRAPPED UP IN THAT SNAKE & looked deep into his eyes, she said she saw therein all the knowledge of the ages! Let me tell you‚ that Old Boy, he's got a lot of knowledge & he's wiser in his generation than some of the Children of Light & smarter about how to use it!
18. WHOEVER PUT THOSE TWO TOGETHER IN LONDON? My Lord, folks, watch what matchmaking you do‚ what people you put together! What some of you are going to have to pay for for some of the matches you've made!—Including me!—Some of the matches we encouraged which were not necessarily of the Lord.
19. WHY WASN'T SOMEBODY WATCHING OUT FOR THAT POOR BOY? He was very shy & timid & sort of reticent, but very very valuable as an artist. Somebody should have been taking care of him & watching over him & protecting him & making sure he didn't get into anything he shouldn't get into! Whoever let that situation develop in the first place?
20. ALL KINDS OF TOP PEOPLE WORKED WITH HER, & WHEN IT WAS SUGGESTED SHE MIGHT COME DOWN HERE THEY SENT US THE MOST GLOWING RECOMMENDATIONS—how wonderful she was‚ how sacrificial, how sweet & all the rest! So I was absolutely almost floored when I first saw her picture & thought, "My Lord, this gal looks like a witch!" The eyes are windows of the soul, & let me tell you, she was weird! It's a lot safer to trust God for your wisdom than to listen to people, especially if they haven't got real spiritual discernment! Well, they can have a lot else, I must admit, & still not have spiritual discernment.
21. I DON'T THINK EVEN GRANDMOTHER HAD DISCERNMENT, BELIEVE IT OR NOT! She had wisdom, she had knowledge, she had great faith, she had gifts of healing, perhaps even miracles. She certainly had prophecy, tongues & interpretation, but if there was any one gift in the whole list that I think she lacked, it was discerning of spirits!
22. FROM THE TIME I WAS A LITTLE KID I COULD SEE THROUGH THOSE PEOPLE, but they were always able to pull the wool over Grandmother's eyes & I never could understand why! She took this guy in—& I was just a young teenager then—this young bum off the street, & I told her right off the bat, "Mom, you're crazy, that guy is a crook!" Taking him right into the house! Well, sure enough‚ next morning we woke up & my saxophone & her gold clock were both gone & so was he! She was always getting deceived by the weirdest people! She just seemed to be totally oblivious to their true nature!
23. THE ONLY REASON I CAN THINK OF WHY THE LORD LET HER BE THAT WAY is that she otherwise might not have been perhaps as loving or gentle, not as tolerant‚ not as patient with people as she was. Because she spent a lot more time with some people I wouldn't have fiddled with for two minutes! I don't know how much good it did‚ but it did seem to do some good in some pretty bad cases. Maybe you've got patience for cases like that, maybe you have more than I have!
24. I'VE NEVER HAD ANY PATIENCE WITH THE DEVIL, HE JUST MAKES ME MAD & I WANT TO BLOW HIM AWAY RIGHT OFF THE BAT! I don't have time to fiddle around with these people who tolerate devils!—And then they won't even confess it or admit it because they're afraid they'll be exposed. Well, I want to tell you right now‚ that gal's going to have to get rid of that Chinese demon or we're going to have to [have her leave]‚ one or the other! I don't like his looks, much less his works! (The picture was one of a Chinese demon god!)
25. I'M ALWAYS TRYING TO BE SO PATIENT WITH THE ARTISTS BECAUSE IT'S SUCH HARD WORK & it's so hard to redo those things, you have to start from scratch sometimes all over again. I hate to ever change anything unless I absolutely have to. I thought‚ "Lord‚ Eman sure must have been out of tune on this one!" Then when I got the final copy with the final art & I looked at that thing, I said, "Wow, he is really on the wrong channel somehow!"
26. SO YOU HAVE TO KNOW HOW THOSE THINGS WORK SO YOU'RE NOT IGNORANT OF THE DEVIL & HIS DEVICES! (2Co.2:11) I don't like to even talk about it, except when we face a situation where we have to deal with it. But you certainly have to know it exists & you have to have a little discernment to know who's responsible‚ & for God's sake, be able to recognise the Old Boy when you see him! If you know what he looks like, you certainly ought to know what his dirty work looks like! Well, I've already given you one talk on Gen & her witchcraft & all that already, so there's no use going over all that again.
27. BUT FOR GOD'S SAKE, LEADERS, PRAY FOR WISDOM SO YOU'LL KNOW HOW TO USE THE KNOWLEDGE!—AND YOU CERTAINLY NEED FAITH! The gift of faith is not very obvious, is it? You can't see it, you can't tell me what colour it is, you can't hear it. Well, sometimes you can see it on people's faces in a way, & you can certainly tell by the way they act how much faith they've got, right?
28. DEAR PAUL PUTS THE GIFTS OF HEALING FOURTH ON THE LIST, SO IT MUST BE PRETTY IMPORTANT! Because after all, you've got to stay healthy or you're not going to serve the Lord very well, right? Healing is not only given for the sake of working miracles, to show off like the healing evangelists—I'm not saying that they all do it to show off, I think they're really thankful & they're trying to help people, even though they do it pretty showily & get a lot of glory for it—but it's pretty necessary for your own sake & the sake of your co-workers, to believe in healing, that the Lord can heal. And it's sometimes necessary for the sake of outsiders.
29. GOD OFTEN USED HEALING & MIRACLES TO GET A CROWD FOR THE SAKE OF THE PUBLICITY SO THEY COULD HEAR THE MESSAGE & BELIEVE IT! It encouraged them to believe it because of the miracles. What do you suppose makes the difference between gifts of healing & miracles? All healings are miracles, in a way, but there's a difference. There are other kinds of miracles that have nothing to do with healing, like the dear old country preacher I told you about with "The Miracle Motor!" (FC 13, Tape MC16).
30. SO MIRACLES ARE PRETTY IMPORTANT TOO, AMEN? And by the way‚ do you know what the word "miracle" means? It comes from the Latin root meaning "to look at‚" something that makes people look!—Makes people look & pay attention! The purpose of miracles is to attract attention to the message & help people to receive it, right?
31. WELL‚ WHO DO WE MINISTER TO PRIMARILY AS A WHOLE? WHAT KIND OF A MOVEMENT IS THIS ANYWAY?—YOUTH! And what attracts youth more than anything else? I don't think they pay much attention, really, to supernatural miracles, they've seen the Ouija boards & deviltry & the fakirs & everything else! What do I often call our miracles of today?—Music is what the kids are listening to! Music is what attracts kids today. Music is like their religion. I'll tell you, there's a lot of deep stuff in that song Don McLean sings—"went down to the sacred store" & so on. He was talking about the sacred music of the Beatles & all that sort of thing. (See "Bye Bye Pie!" No.232.)
32. MIRACLES OF MUSIC IS WHAT GOD HAS GIVEN US PRIMARILY TO ATTRACT THE YOUTH OF TODAY! We have a few other miracles, thank the Lord—people have been healed, there are testimonies of it all the time. Especially with older people, it seems‚ because they have more things wrong with them. But it seems like they need miracles to encourage their faith.
33. PROPHECY OF COURSE IS A VERY IMPORTANT GIFT THAT YOU LEADERS SHOULD PRAY FOR! In fact, Paul practically puts it at the top of the list in the 14th chapter. He said, "I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues‚ except he interpret" (1Co.14:5).
34. SO REALLY AN INTERPRETER IS LIKE A PROPHET because he is able to get the interpretation, which is virtually the same as prophecy.—To be able to get the words in your own language of a message that comes in another language. The only difference between that & direct prophecy is that there's no intermediary message in tongues, you just get it straight from the Lord without the secondary step of having to get it in tongues first & then interpret.
35. SO FRANKLY, I THINK IN A WAY, PROPHECY IS EVEN THE GREATEST‚ BUT HE PUTS INTERPRETATION APPARENTLY ON ABOUT THE SAME LEVEL. They are very kindred gifts, if you know anything about them or have them, & they're very important‚ especially when God is speaking & especially for the sake of others. It's an encouragement to your own heart, of course, but even tongues can be a very great inspiration & edifying of your own spirit without having to interpret or prophesy.
36. YOU CAN GO ON TALKING TO THE LORD IN TONGUES & PRAYING IN TONGUES BY THE HOUR & be very greatly encouraged & thrilled & edified & just feel wonderful in Spirit, because your spirit was edified. But if you're going to help others you've got to be able to interpret. Even if you're going to help yourself, if you're serving the Lord & want to know what God's talking about, you've got to be able to interpret to get the message!—Of which He has given us quite a few, amen?
37. I DON'T KNOW THAT I EVER PRAYED FOR PROPHECY, BUT I USED TO PRAY A LOT FOR TONGUES when I was a young Christian, because that's what everybody seemed to want to have! The gift of tongues seemed such a miracle to me‚ I thought it would just be wonderful! But I never got it till Abrahim came along, & then I couldn't stop talking in tongues for three days! He was sure a chattery fellow when he first came! I guess he'd been pent up for so long & hadn't had a chance to say anything!
38. WE PICKED HIM UP IN HOUSTON ABOUT JANUARY OR FEBRUARY. Good night! No wonder he talked so much—he had to shut up for March, April & May—about three months!—And never had a chance to say anything because of my stupid idiotic stubborn pride & hardness of heart & deafness of hearing, blindness of seeing & all my carnal resistance! He still doesn't get much chance unless he practically punches his way through or unless I get a little bit drunk sometimes or I'm asleep!
39. DID YOU EVER HEAR ABOUT THE TIME HE WANTED MARIA TO TAKE HIM OUT FOR A WALK TO SEE THE COUNTRY WHILE I WAS SLEEPING? (See "Conversation with Abrahim," ML #1481, GN Book 5.) He said, "Here I am in this pretty country & you never show me your pretty country! David's always too tired! Why don't we just let him sleep here & let's go out & see the country!" But then he thought better of it, he said he was assigned to me & if he left, I might not make it! (Maria: He said David might not be home when we got back!) I might have departed into his World!
40. SO HE HAS TO KIND OF WATCH OVER ME—BUT THERE'S SOMEBODY OVER HIM THAT IS MUCH MIGHTIER & MORE POWERFUL, THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL! But most of the time he's apparently too big & important to talk to me directly.—Except once in awhile, & there's a big difference, & you've probably read the difference in the Letters! All those perfectly fluent beautiful prophecies that sound like the Bible, "They Can't Stop Our Rain" & "Kingdom Prophecies," etc., in which there's no accent, no stumbling, just beautiful, beautiful language!—I believe that's probably Michael speaking directly!
41. HE SPEAKS WITH THE AUTHORITY & THE VOICE OF THE LORD DIRECTLY, & HE SAYS "I THE LORD," etc. In other words, he's just like the channel or mouthpiece for God, whereas Abrahim never calls himself the Lord! Once in awhile he will quote the Lord, a direct message from the Lord, but most of the time he's talking for himself. I mean, he's giving me messages & telling me things, but he's like a counsellor or advisor.
42. SO THANK THE LORD FOR THE GIFT OF PROPHECY! I had that long before I got Abrahim. It came with beauty & purity in the earliest days—as far back as Laurentide is where it really came forth—but even a long time before that the Lord had given us interpretations, for which I am thankful, especially when there wasn't anybody else around to interpret & I wanted to know what was being said!
43. BUT THE ONE WHO REALLY FORCED MY HAND ON THAT WAS THAT LITTLE GIRL SITTING RIGHT OVER THERE, GOD BLESS HER, MARIA!—Because she used to pray so much in tongues & I wanted to know what she was saying! She was praying for me & I wanted to know what the Lord had to say about me! And then, once she found out I had the gift of interpretation, there was no stopping her! She'd want to rattle off in tongues all day, & tried to do it all she could, so she could get all she wanted! She sure loved to hear from the Lord—like a little child likes to hear Daddy talk!
44. WELL, IT LOOKS AS THOUGH THE DISCERNING OF SPIRITS IS KIND OF LOW ON THE LIST HERE (1Cor.12:10), followed by only two more. But as you can see, Paul ranks interpretation right along with prophecy, & as good as says in the 14th chapter that this is one of the most important gifts, at least it's certainly more important than tongues. Obviously these gifts are not necessarily in any specific order of importance. But I wouldn't say that for the list in 1Corinthians 12:28, I think here he's literally trying to put them in sequence of importance because he definitely uses the ordinal words, first, second‚ etc.—with Apostles at the top of the list!—Missionaries!
45. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS LIST & THAT OTHER LIST WE'VE BEEN READING? (Verses 8–10) It looks like some of them seem to be the same thing, but there is a difference! The first list is a list of the Gifts of the Spirit‚ the second (Verse 28) is a list of the Offices of the Church‚ & in this he puts the Apostles first! And what were Apostles? Well, the old dyed-in-wool formal church puts the Apostles back there with the Twelve that Jesus had, & that was the end of them! But if that's true‚ why in the World is Paul wasting his time talking about Apostles here long after their day? Is there still a church? If these are the offices of the church, there must still be Apostles of the church!—And there are!: The Missionaries!
46. LET'S GO BACK TO THE GREEK MEANING OF THE WORD "APOSTOLOS": A MESSENGER SENT WITH A MESSAGE! Apostles are those sent with a message‚ messengers! I said the other day maybe we ought to call those pioneer teams "Pioneer Apostles" & let them really know who they are! We seem to count them the lowliest of all the poor, little pioneer backpack teams that hit the road to go pioneer new territory! But God puts them at the top of His list! As far as He's concerned, they're the greatest of all!—Not the bigwigs sitting up in London or somewhere—or me! I just come second on the list!
47. FOR SOME REASON I GUESS PROPHETS ARE KIND OF IMPORTANT, but they're not as important in God's eyes as the dear little nobody who's willing to get out & risk his life to carry the Message of the Prophet! Every litnesser on the street is greater than I am in God's eyes, really! Jesus said of some‚ "They have their reward!" I'm already getting my reward. The more credit you give me now, the less I'm going to get later. The more glory I get now, the less I'm going to get later. Well, praise God‚ at least the more blame I get now, the less I'll get later too!—Ha!
48. WELL, SOME CHURCHES HAVE RECOGNISED THE OFFICE OF THE APOSTLES. In the Mormon Church, their top officials are called Apostles, but they're great big church bigwigs, so they don't exactly fit the picture! I haven't seen them much going anywhere with a message—although nearly every Mormon has got to go out sometime in his career & spend two years in the field, which I think is good! No matter who they are, some time in their experience they have to go on what they call their "mission," & they go out virtually by faith, living in homes & going door-to-door with literature & all that sort of thing—Mormon missionaries!
49. MORMON MISSIONARIES ARE PEOPLE JUST LIKE YOU & ME, common ordinary people, housewives & workmen, & they just go & spend two years out evangelising. Of course, it's too bad they don't keep on going! Some, I presume, do, but two years is all they're required. But that's a Heaven-of-a-lot more than is required of most Christians in most churches!
50. JUST THINK, THERE'RE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF CHRISTIANS! If every one of them was required to spend two years out on some mission field, we'd have the World evangelised by now! If the two or three percent had stayed home & sent the other 97% to the field, we'd have had it done by this time too! Instead of that, the 99 have stayed home in the fold & the other one's out there in the field—& pretty lost at that!
51. SO APOSTLES ARE AT THE TOP OF GOD'S LIST & I would say they must be those little missionaries & those poor little teams that go out & try to evangelise people, whether they're going door-to-door in your country or some other country or out on the street litnessing, whoever it is that's going out there to carry a message to some people which maybe haven't heard it before, or even if they have heard it before, at least they're carrying a message! PTL? There are all kinds of Apostles‚ no doubt‚ but I certainly think we ought to give our pioneer teams credit for being Apostles—Pioneer Apostles!
52. SECOND COME US PROPHETS, HE SAYS! We're only second-rate officers! Of course, quite often we're not necessarily up in the battlefront in the thick of the battle.—God has to kind of protect His channel & His messenger so that He'll keep having a mouthpiece! Third—here we are in ordinals again—teachers! Very important. You can be teaching without necessarily prophesying‚ right? A lot of my Letters are just teaching.
53. I WAS A TEACHER BEFORE I WAS A PROPHET, FOR A GOOD MANY YEARS, but it was nevertheless good preparation. Because then when I began to get prophecy I realised it was important to teach the prophecy to the people, that's what I was getting it for! So teachers are very important‚ & of course it's nice to be inspired teachers! Sometimes I've been teaching & suddenly got inspired & started prophesying when the Teacher Himself takes over! As old evangelists used to say, "If the Preacher comes!"
54. AFTER THAT‚ MIRACLES! Well‚ it seems like miracles is a kind of a full–time job for somebody! In our outfit it certainly is with our musicians & all! If anybody has got the gift of miracles, they have! It certainly ought to keep them busy, along with healing! Like all the healing evangelists seem to know, it's a full-time job!
55. I BELIEVE SOME OF US HAVE GIFTS OF HEALING & PERHAPS WE'RE NOT USING THEM AS WE SHOULD! These people who have had amazing instantaneous healings‚ under their prayers & anointing of the Lord, ought to take a second look & a second thought & think about it, because it's quite possible they have a gift of healing! Now why does it say gifts of healings? There are different kinds of gifts & different kinds of healings, for different kinds of illnesses!
56. MY MOTHER HAD A SPECIAL SUCCESS WITH CANCER & EPILEPSY, but she had very little faith for diabetes because of the stupid way people eat! She used to say in Pennsylvania, "What's the use of coming up here & healing all these people & just have to come back next year & do it again?" With three kinds of sweet desserts on the table every time & all kinds of junk that they ate, they sure needed the gifts of healings there for sure!
57. SOME PEOPLE HAVE PARTICULAR SUCCESS & SPECIAL FAITH FOR CERTAIN TYPES OF DISEASES, BELIEVE IT OR NOT! I've known certain healing evangelists that had particular faith for certain kinds of healing. William Branham used to be called a healing evangelist—that's what his promoters tried to advertise & brag about because they knew that would get the crowd!—But he wasn't, he was a Prophet! He wasn't really even a prophet, he didn't prophesy hardly worth a hoot, but he had the gift of knowledge & discerning spirits, just two strong gifts that I know of.
58. HE COULD SEE THE FUTURE! They lined up a big healing line for him to pray for the people, & the moment he'd lay hands on them he would see what was wrong with them & he would see whether they were going to be healed or not—but he never claimed to have the gift of healing at all. He would just lay hands on them & pray for them: "Brother, you are going to be healed at such-&-such a time! You're going to be sitting on the toilet, you're going to be cooking in the kitchen" or wherever it was, "& that's when it's going to happen!"
59. SOMETIMES HE'D ALMOST GET SCARED! "I see a terrible dark cloud of death!—You haven't got long to live!" So he didn't heal everybody & he never claimed to heal anybody! But he did have the gift of knowledge, to know things in advance of what was going to happen, & the gift of discernment. He time & again discerned the spirits that people had which were causing the diseases. Evil spirits had fastened ahold on them, like a cancer or like a scorpion or like a serpent, that were causing the disease because of the sin in their lives.
60. HE USED TO SAY, "NOW DON'T EVER COME UP HERE IN PUBLIC & ASK ME TO PRAY FOR YOU IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR MOST INTIMATE PRIVATE LIFE REVEALED before the whole congregation, because God is apt to give me anything! I don't know what He will give me!" And he would tell people some of their sins right before the whole audience! "This is the thing that struck me, I see you doing so-&-so & this is why you're sick," etc. Or, "You have such-&-such an evil spirit & that's why you're sick."
61. THANK GOD FOR THOSE WHO HAVE THE GIFTS OF HEALINGS & HAVE A REAL TOUCH IN THEIR HANDS, SOME PEOPLE REALLY HAVE IT! It seems like almost everybody they pray for gets healed! PTL! TYL! I have faith for certain things. I must not have much faith for eyes, because when I got old I bought glasses‚ & I don't seem to have much faith for other people's eyes. If you want your eyes healed you'd better go to somebody else, because I'll probably tell you to go to the doctor! But there are other things I have a little more faith for healing for‚ praise the Lord?
62. ONE THING WHICH IS A GIFT THAT I TREMBLE AT SOMETIMES—BECAUSE IT'S A GIFT THAT I DON'T RELISH HAVING TO USE—IT'S THE DISCERNING OF SPIRITS! Therefore God has led me by the anointing of the Spirit to cast out those spirits‚ that the person might be delivered physically from having the effect of those spirits‚ particularly spirits of fear. Maybe that's because I have the faith that I have, a lot of faith in the Lord‚ & that gives me great power against fear, which is the opposite of faith! Praise God! TYL! That's probably also why the Devil attacks me along that line sometimes in my weakest moments.—With fear! (See "Terror By Night!" ML #857.)
63. GOD'S SHOWED ME A NUMBER OF TIMES WHERE PEOPLE'S SOLE TROUBLE WAS THEIR FEAR. Leila was delivered, I told you about that. I just had to show her love & faith & rebuke the Devil, cast out the spirit of fear, & she was delivered‚ thank the Lord! Also that girl up in Pennsylvania who was in bed eight years, so long that from the weight of the covers on her feet, her feet looked like paws! She'd been in bed so long she was thin like a skeleton with skin stretched over it!
64. I LAID HANDS ON HER HEAD & VIOLENTLY PRAYED & REBUKED THE DEVIL & CAST OUT THIS EVIL SPIRIT OF FEAR, & SHE WAS INSTANTLY DELIVERED! Next time I saw her, three weeks later, she'd already gained 20 pounds & was doing great!—Helen Jones! She used to send us $5 a month, which was part of our living for many years, God bless her! Beautiful girl! TYL!
65. THERE DON'T SEEM TO BE MANY FAITH & HEALING EVANGELISTS NOW, OR AT LEAST WE'RE NOT HEARING ABOUT THEM IF THERE ARE! There seemed to be a sort of a reaping period when there were all those great healing evangelists & gifted evangelists—like God's last effort to try to help the people in the United States particularly—but now it seems like there just are almost no more!—I think probably because of the lack of faith of the U.S. people, they're so unbelieving!
66. EVEN JESUS HIMSELF SAID HE COULD NOT DO MANY MIGHTY WORKS THERE BECAUSE OF THEIR UNBELIEF! (Mt.13:58) He passed through His Own country that knew Him so well‚ but He couldn't do many mighty works there because they couldn't believe He was a Prophet! All they knew Him as was the son of the carpenter. Well, if Jesus Himself couldn't do miracles because of people's lack of faith, then what in the World can we do if people don't have any faith? That's probably why America's not having so many of those great faith & healing evangelists anymore, because they don't have any faith anymore! They've lost their faith! They get guys like Nixon now instead, that's who they're putting their faith in!
67. WILLIAM BRANHAM WAS ONE OF THE HUMBLEST MEN I EVER KNEW, a little old country fellow from Kentucky! He just butchered the proper English & he was as common & as crude & as hicky as they come, but he had great gifts! He was a little tiny squirt too, a little bald-headed man just about the size of Ho here & about as baldheaded!—A little more baldheaded! And the Lord sent him across my path.
68. DEAR MOTHER EVE, SHE'S ALWAYS ENGINEERING THINGS, SHE'S A MANOUVERER! She managed to maneuver me into that Preacher's Meeting after his big meeting there near Phoenix. After the meeting they had a Preacher's Banquet, probably something cooked up by the big shots or sponsors, but he didn't seem to like it too much, & the Lord just happened to see to it that I sat at a table almost directly across from him where he had to look me straight in the eyes!
69. THAT WAS A TURNING POINT IN MY LIFE! I'd just lost my church & my preacherhood & I'd gone back to university, was fed up with the church & churchianity! If all your life you've been trained to be a preacher‚ preachers are one bunch that have the hardest time if they quit the ministry! There's not much they can do except go to schoolteaching, & that's usually what they resort to.
70. I WAS REALLY BROKEN & I WAS REALLY HUNGRY & DESPERATE TO KNOW WHAT THE LORD HAD FOR ME! I'll tell you, there were some juicy jewels back there we should have! Anyhow, you know what faith is like, it's like a suction, & I was really pulling on him! And finally he looked right down on me! He tried to make it kind of general like he was talking to a lot of them—because there were a lot of preachers out there who'd built churches in the middle of the desert in Arizona—but I knew he was talking to me!
71. HE SAID, "DON'T WORRY, SON, if you built that little church out there in the middle of the desert & worked hard & they haven't appreciated you," etc. He just told my life story right off like that! And then he quoted word for word the passage in Revelation about the Philadelphian Church that I had been given before by three other prophets!
72. HE QUOTED THE SCRIPTURE, "A GREAT EFFECTUAL DOOR IS GOING TO BE OPENED UNTO YOU THAT NO MAN CAN CLOSE" (Rev.3:8), & he just seemed almost taken aback for a moment! He said, "You're going to have a marvellous ministry!" Then when he met me at the door—he was shaking hands with all the preachers that went out—he threw his arms around me & hugged & kissed me, & I was just sobbing—I really needed it!
73. HE SAID, "SON, GOD'S GOT GREAT THINGS IN STORE FOR YOU! Don't worry, just be patient, just wait, there's some great things ahead for you, great things, a great door! Such a great door will be opened for you that nobody is ever going to be able to close it!" TYL! Of course, I had to wait a helluva long time for that & I had some hellish experiences in the meantime! That was many years ago! I had to wait about 20 years! But thank You Lord, the day finally came! So be patient! Think how long poor Moses had to wait—40 years in Egypt & 40 years with the sheep until his ministry began, then 40 more years with the even more stupid human sheep! Praise God!
74. "HELPS"—A LOT OF PEOPLE IN OUR LITTLE CHURCH RIGHT HERE HAVE THE GIFT OF HELPS! One just brought me a glass of water! That's a very valuable gift, or office I should say, to be able to help! You don't seem to think you're accomplishing very much?—Well, maybe without you‚ we wouldn't accomplish very much!
75. FOR THE YEARS THAT I TRAVELLED WITH MY MOTHER‚ I WAS THE GENERAL FLUNKY, chauffeur‚ bag-carrier & bellboy! I finally did get to lead the singing, but at that time I never became the great man of God that I always wanted to be, a great evangelist like my Mother. Instead of that, I just had to be her flunky for a good many years. But the Lord showed me one day when I was really fed up, "Art thou called being a servant? Seek not to be loosed" (1Co.7:21). He showed me that I had a share in all of her ministry because I was making it possible. Therefore I would share in her rewards of what she accomplished.
76. SO IF YOU FEEL PRETTY SMALL & YOU DON'T SEEM LIKE YOU'RE DOING VERY MUCH but running errands for us or cooking meals for us, ministering to us physically or whatever, just remember, without that‚ we wouldn't be able to carry on & do what we're doing for the Lord. So therefore you've got just as much a share in what we're doing as we have, don't forget that! Every Letter that goes out‚ you have an investment in it & you're going to reap dividends on it, real royalties, praise God!
77. YOU MAY BE AMAZED HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU'RE GOING TO FIND IN HEAVEN WHO WERE WON TO THE LORD BY YOU PERSONALLY THAT YOU NEVER SAW, because you helped make those Letters possible, you helped get out the Word! You cooked the meal that fed the Prophet, gave him the strength to prophesy, you cleaned the toilet, & a lot of other things that I won't mention here! Anyway, praise God‚ you keep him happy, healthy, wealthy & wise! Well, I am rich, thank the Lord‚ in having you!
78. "GOVERNMENTS"—SOME PEOPLE REALLY HAVE REAL ORGANISATIONAL ABILITY & THEY'RE ORGANISERS & MANAGERS OF MEN! Being good at managing others is governing, right? Good managers of people, managers of men, governors. Good at governments! Praise God for those who have that ability to work with people & know how to handle them, to get them to work together & cooperate, like managers & foremen in God's shops! It's a great ability‚ it's a marvellous thing to have that Office of the Church, very very necessary, otherwise everything would fall apart! I think maybe I've got a touch of that or everything would have fallen apart a long time ago!
79. IF WE'D COMPROMISED WITH THE CHURCHES, LOOK WHERE WE'D BE NOW—OR WHERE WE WOULDN'T BE! It seemed like we were giving up a lot when we gave up church. Mother Eve used to weep over it, it really broke her heart, let me tell you, God bless her! "If we're not going to serve the Lord in Church, where are we going to serve Him? How can we serve Him without churches & church people?" I never dreamed we were going to get a bunch of dirty hippies to come & serve the Lord!—Ha!
80. WE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT HIPPIES WERE, HOW COULD WE KNOW WHAT THE LORD WAS GOING TO DO? If He'd told me 20 years sooner that I was going to be working with the hippies, I wouldn't have known what He was talking about anyway! I would have thought it was some kind of fish! There are a lot of things the Lord couldn't tell me in advance because they hadn't even happened yet, they didn't have a word for it yet!
81. SO THANK THE LORD, WE'RE STILL GOING ON! He's given us a little ability at trying to help you manage one another & stick together—so well that our enemies even accuse us of being the best organised, the storm troopers of the Jesus Revolution! So thank God, He had to give us a little cohesiveness to make us stick together & keep in communication, some kind of organisation to keep working together.
82. EVERY ARMY'S GOT TO HAVE SOME KIND OF ORGANISATION TO BE COHERENT & COORDINATED & WORK TOGETHER. Because if everybody's going his own direction & back to his own tent, they won't ever know anything about you! But we have stuck together as an army & kept in good close communication! God's coordinated our efforts through the Letters & good organisation & we're still here, thank the Lord! Praise God! Amen?
83. AND TONGUES IS EVEN A MINISTRY IN THE CHURCH, PRAISE THE LORD? You don't exactly want to call them offices—if that's too formal you can call them ministries, services. It's so hard to find a good word that the church hasn't already flavoured or ruined. I got to where if you called me a preacher I almost socked you one! It's almost like an insult, preachers have such a bad reputation! And what does the word "church" mean? Of course nearly everybody thinks it is a building. So the church has already ruined the language, you've got to think of something new to call it.
84. BUT ANYHOW‚ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO CALL THEM OFFICES, YOU CAN CALL THEM MINISTRIES OR SERVICES. They are special duties that certain people have which sort of link together with the gifts‚ because anybody who's got the ministry of miracles, certainly has to have the gift of miracles! Anybody that's going to have a ministry of tongues has got to have the gift of tongues‚ right? If he's going to be a prophet, if he's got that ministry‚ he'd better have the gift of prophecy or he's sure going to have a wide open mouth & nothing to say! If you're going to have a ministry of healing, you'd better have the gift or you're not going to have much success!
85. SO THEY SORT OF LINK TOGETHER! YOUR MINISTRY‚ IN A WAY, IS SORT OF DECIDED BY YOUR GIFTS—THEY MAKE ROOM FOR YOUR MINISTRY! Thank you‚ Son! We have here one with the gift of helps! I should say the ministry of helps, but it's also certainly a gift. Quite a few of you folks here have that‚ as well as other gifts. He puts tongues down on the end of the list again, notice? How could these Pentecostals overlook that all these years? It's at the bottom of both lists!
86. I WENT OVER DISCERNING OF SPIRITS REAL FAST TO DEAL WITH THOSE OTHERS & BRING YOU DOWN TO THE ONE WHICH IS ONE OF THE MOST NECESSARY, because when it comes to dealing with the Devil you've got to know something about how he operates & be able to recognise his ministers & their ministry. You'd better be able to spot those little devils & some of their little devilish tricks, or they're going to spot you & fool you! And I thank the Lord that He has, I believe, given me a little discernment along that line‚ because I've been able to spot a lot of these troublemakers & troublespots, sometimes before they cause too much trouble! The only time when that gift doesn't work as well as it should is when I don't pay enough attention to it, when I take somebody else's word for it instead of God's Word & my own feelings in the matter.
87. IT ALMOST HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH YOUR FEELINGS, THE VIBES YOU GET OFF OF PEOPLE! I get a lot by personal contact, by touching them, or eye contact. You've been over it with me in some of these new Letters. The eyes are the windows of the soul, they tell a lot about the person. You can look into their eyes & see light or darkness, you can see angelic spirits, beautiful spirits, or sometimes you can see the eyes of devils! (See "Look of Love!" No.304.)
88. TO BE FOREWARNED IS TO BE FOREARMED & it's a good idea to be able to spot these critters before they get you on the spot—like the one that's now causing us a lot of trouble! But "all things work together for good to them that love the Lord" (Rom.8:28), & you wouldn't have had this particular lesson this afternoon if we hadn't had this big a problem, & you all need it.
89. IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE LEADERS IN GOD'S FIELD, WORKING WITH THE SHEEP, YOU NEED TO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT HOW THE OLD BOY WORKS! I already told you in "The Knotted Cord," the little talk I gave on Gen the other night & her problem, that people with those spiritual proclivities or tendencies—what I might almost call weaknesses or susceptibilities—are susceptible to spiritual influences, & if they don't stay mighty close to God & His Holy Spirit, they're very susceptible to evil spirits.
90. IF THEY ARE A TRULY SAVED BORN-AGAIN CHILD OF GOD, THIS DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN THAT THE DEVIL GIVES UP ENTIRELY! He's had a nice vehicle to ride in & a nice channel to work on for a long time & he doesn't easily give up! He will frequently stay around for a long time afterward to pester. I don't know just how to explain all these things. I don't know everything about the Spirit World by a long shot, but I know enough by experience to know that people who have been involved in that sort of thing have a Hell of a time trying to shake it & get rid of it! The spirits like to stick around their old happy home that they had before!
91. LIKE THE STORY JESUS TOLD ABOUT THE GUY THAT GOT ALL CLEANED UP, house swept & garnished, so that when the devil who had lived there saw it was a pretty nice place to live now‚ nicer than it had been before‚ he got some more that were even worse than he was & came back & they all moved in! (Mt.12:43-45). You say, "Well, how can that possibly be?"
92. WELL‚ APPARENTLY THE GUY DIDN'T MOVE IN THEIR ARCHENEMY, THE HOLY SPIRIT, TO FILL UP HIS HOUSE & TAKE OVER TO KEEP OUT THE INTRUDERS! Let me tell you, if you don't fill your heart & mind & spirit with the Holy Spirit when you're saved‚ & you don't really get baptised with the power of God to fight the Enemy‚ if you've had problems with spirits, you'd better look out! I don't see how a Child of God can be a child of the Devil, I don't see how a Child of God can be demon-possessed, but they can sure be demon-oppressed. There's a difference.
93. DEMON-POSSESSION MEANS THAT A PERSON IS CONTROLLED BY A SPIRIT WITHIN who has taken over their mind & their consciousness & supplanted their own spirit & become that personality, has taken over the body. It sounds like some kind of a science fiction movie or whatever you want to call it! They've got stuff like this that's very similar in science fiction where they plant some kind of a gadget in the back of their necks, some kind of a critter‚ a little bat attached to the top of the head or something that takes over their spirit & the control of their body‚ & that's what the demon does. That is demon-possession when the person is no longer in control whatsoever of themselves & is under the total complete control of a devil & he has taken them over.
94. DEMON-OPPRESSION IS A DIFFERENT THING, THAT'S THE DEVIL'S ATTACKS FROM THE OUTSIDE. But it seems that the demons who may have even been cast out of the inside through conversion, etc., in some people‚ seem to want to hang around & cause that person a lot of trouble afterward. That was the case with Mr. Machowski & Tom! (See No.1415.)
95. I HAVE KNOWN OF EVEN CHRISTIANS THAT HAVE BEEN SAVED & ARE TRULY CHILDREN OF GOD BUT STILL CONTINUE TO BE OPPRESSED BY EVIL SPIRITS, especially if they had a lot to do with those things. But I'll tell you, if they are unwilling to admit & confess that they have this problem & really cry out desperately & sincerely to God for help to get rid of these rascals & shake them off, then they are in trouble!—If they don't really seek God for the power of the Holy Ghost to get rid of these damned Satanic spooks!
96. PRIDE IS ONE OF THE WORST OF SINS & IT OPENS THE DOOR FOR OTHERS LIKE JEALOUSY & A GREAT NUMBER OF OTHERS! And if you don't look out, you're going to be back to square one again! If you're full of all these sins, God only knows what else you may get in the bargain, because when you let sin in the door, you let the Devil in!
97. EVERY SIN IN YOUR LIFE IS A PART OF THE DEVIL'S TERRITORY & when you've got sin in your heart—pride, jealousy, unwillingness to confess your sins & your problems & the truth—let me tell you, you haven't got much chance of getting rid of your problems! No sinner who is unwilling to confess he's a sinner is ever going to get saved! Just so, no person who is sick & unwilling to confess their sins & make it right with God & really seek God's help according to His commandments, according to the Word of God, no such sick person is going to get healed either!
98. AND CERTAINLY NO ONE WHO HAS POSSIBLY BEEN POSSESSED OF DEVILS BEFORE & now is harassed & oppressed by them is going to get rid of them unless they confess it & get down humbly before God & cry out in desperate prayer with the help of others to agree together to chase those damn devils away by the power of the Spirit of God in the Name of Jesus, to command them to depart & never come back again! But if they keep that pride & that jealousy & they let that sin back in again, back comes the Devil! I've seen it happen time & again.
99. I'VE SEEN PEOPLE WHO GOT TOTALLY DELIVERED FROM EVIL SPIRITS, BUT THEY DIDN'T GET DELIVERED FROM THEIR SINS, & THEY DIDN'T GET RIGHT WITH GOD, they went back to the same old thing & they wound up worse pestered than they had been before! Because unless you fill that mind & heart with the power of God & the Holy Spirit, that devil's going to come right back in just as fast as you can cast him out! He'll come right back in the door like the book salesman! (Referring to the joke about, "Do you want the books or don'tcha?" [ML #667].) You can cast him out a thousand times a day, but if you've got an open channel, an open heart to the Devil, he'll keep coming right back!
100. THE LORD OF THE FLIES HAS ONE OF HIS LITTLE EMISSARIES IN HERE TO PESTER US! Attack, attack! Don't just sit down by it & let it buzz around & keep annoying you, for God's sake! Decide you're going to swat him & get rid of him! Well, I'll tell you, demons aren't quite as easy to get rid of as flies, they're more like hornets! When you start to attack hornets & bees, Brother, they go on the attack & they try to sting you & get you first! Hornets get mad! Did you know they could get angry? God made those little critters to have emotions! Hornets & bees both can get mad. They apparently get fearful & afraid of you, so they decide they have to attack you since you're probably going to cause them trouble & attack them.
101. SO DON'T BE PREPARED TO HIT THE DEVIL HEAD-ON UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED TO GO ALL THE WAY & really have it out & really get rid of him or the person who's harbouring him [has to leave], one or the other! When you have driven the Devil out in the open & exposed him, you have precipitated a crisis & you have started something that you had better finish! There's an old slogan about "there's the Devil to pay!"—We're beginning to expose him now & I wonder where he's going to try to sock it to us next!
102. HE BEGAN IN ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTS IN THIS WHOLE MINISTRY HERE, & THAT'S OUR ARTWORK! Do you know how that picture got on that thing? Well, for one thing, Eman was apparently out of the Spirit or he wouldn't have been receptive to the Devil's signals! It's just as simple as a radio. He was not the primary antenna, he was just like a little weak receiver that was left on & caught off guard & got the wrong signals. He got'm & that demon used his fingers to paint his own picture! But there was somebody there who was picking up those signals & broadcasting them primarily.
103. I USED TO BUILD CRYSTAL RADIO SETS, & even if you've got nothing but a little old crystal with virtually almost no power at all in your little radio, if you've got a big enough antenna stuck out there‚ you can get signals almost unheard of! Little crystal radios like we used to build usually only got local stations‚ but late at night I used to get Cincinnati & Pittsburgh in Miami‚ Florida, all kinds of places on my little crystal set, because it had a powerful antenna. The antenna itself generated so much power into my set, that my little set could pick up faraway places!
104. SO IF SOMEBODY IN THAT HOUSE IS STILL AN ANTENNA FOR THE DEVIL & is still picking up those powerful signals, they can give those signals off in such strong vibes as to affect other people, particularly if they are sensitive to spiritual influence. An artist must be very sensitive, & if he's not in the right spirit he's going to get the wrong signals & be a receiver of those vibes that she (Genesis) is broadcasting—or that that devil that's hovering around her is broadcasting!
105. BUT IT WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED IF THEY'D BOTH BEEN IN THE RIGHT SPIRIT & FULL OF THE HOLY GHOST & THE POWER OF THE LORD! The devils don't like the Holy Spirit, they don't like the power of Jesus! Demons love people who are out of the victory & who are full of sinful vices like pride‚ worst of all, & jealousy & things like that! That's their happy home, the kind of people they like! And I'm sorry to say, Gen has manifested it. You say, "Well, she's just a poor little innocent girl!" Well, the Devil has taken over many a poor little innocent girl & made a witch out of them!
106. IF SHE DOESN'T FACE UP TO THE FACTS & CONFESS HER SINS & honestly come clean with us & God about her past & her connections with spiritism & witchcraft—more of which is coming out all the time—if she keeps trying to hide them from her husband & even herself, she is not going to get desperate enough to get rid of those influences! The devils must laugh with glee: "Ha, ha‚ ha! She doesn't want to expose us! She doesn't want to expose herself, therefore she's going to hide us too!"
107. LET ME TELL YOU, WE ARE IN A WAR & you'd better keep in tune & in touch with the Holy Spirit & on God's territory all the time & close to His Word & in the right spirit & constantly in prayer & seeking the Lord & praying for His protection & His help & thanking Him constantly for His blessings & staying mighty close to the Lord, or you're going to be singed by that old fire–breathing Dragon! If you go running around outside of the tower of God's protection & the holy place of His will, that old Devil's going to be on your trail & try to give you all kinds of trouble!
108. I HAD A VISION WHEN WE WERE PRAYING THIS MORNING OF A BATTLE ROYAL GOING ON IN THE SPIRIT WORLD RIGHT NOW! It reminded me of something Grandmother saw once in a vision & the message she got about the loud clashing swords & the noise of battle! We are in a monstrous new revolutionary push to go into all the World & every country to preach the Gospel to every creature—you think the Devil doesn't know it? Do you think he's going to just let us get away with it soft & easy & not try to prevent it? And of course where is he going to try to attack?—As near the Top & the Source as he can! If he can't get into you & me right here, then he'll get into somebody down there & throw a monkey wrench into the machinery & wreck the ministry if he can! And he did!—That sketch!
109. IF I HAD BEEN AS DUMB AS SOME OF YOU ARE SPIRITUALLY, I WOULDN'T HAVE SEEN THE PICTURE EITHER! Thank God everybody up at this house, the minute we stuck the picture in front of them & said, "Do you see anything funny about this?"—they saw it instantly! Some of you guys must not even look at the pictures or you're awfully spiritually insensitive or something! Some of you are so interested in the text, you don't even look at the pictures, I guess! Praise God! That's nice, but the pictures go with the text‚ & if pictures go out to the World that don't represent the text, then it's not good.
110. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE HONEST TRUTH, I have had to put up with some pictures from some of these artists that I didn't even like myself, but I don't have the time or the patience to have to wait to have them all changed. I figured it was better to get out the message with poor pictures than not at all!—Especially when the artists are way up in London & I'm way down here & it takes two weeks to post a roundtrip to change things! So I just have to bawl them out once in awhile & tell them not to do it again—some of that silly stuff!
111. THANK GOD EMAN IS USUALLY IN THE SPIRIT & usually he's really in tune & he really gets the message! He has drawn pictures sometimes that look so much like the vision that I had, I knew it was the Spirit of God!—And that's why he's here! To us he was the most Spirit-filled artist & the most in tune, the most in touch & with the best spirit. But the minute I saw the picture of that girl I said, "My Lord, how did she ever latch on to him? How did she ever get ahold of him?" And now they have a baby!
112. I'M TELLING YOU, YOU'D BETTER GO DOWN THERE & LAY HANDS ON THAT GIRL & THAT BABY & CAST THAT DEVIL OUT of not only them, but out of the house, & tell him not to come back anymore!—And I'm serious‚ I mean business! You are the Elders of this Church & it is within your power & authority to do so! I want you to go down there & let Gen have it & tell her the truth!
113. GET HER FIRST OF ALL TO CONFESS IT & CRY OUT DESPERATELY TO GOD TO GET RID OF IT, because without her cooperation you might as well save your breath! As soon as you're gone out of the house he'll be back if she's not going to take the right attitude. If we tell her that Eman is going over to the other house & not coming back until she gets rid of it, she might start [getting desperate] for God to help her & get right with God! That ought to shake her up a little bit to see the dirty work the Devil did!
114. I BELIEVE WITH ALL MY HEART & SOUL IT WAS DIRECTLY THROUGH HER, BECAUSE SHE'S BEEN A CHANNEL IN THE PAST! I don't think Eman has had anything to do with that sort of thing or knows much about it, & I don't get the same spirit off his pictures or his letters or anything. But in all the letters she wrote to us before, she's always covering up. I don't know if her birth testimony even mentioned the knot? Maybe she just made light of it & said it was nothing instead of being very concerned about it—which she should have been—knowing what those things signify in witchcraft! She should have known & she should have been scared half to death how close the Devil came to [harming] her baby!
115. AND SHE SHOULDN'T JUST KEEP SAYING, "OH, THE BABY'S HOLDING HIS BREATH!" I have known demons to choke people to death right in front of others! That's the commonest thing in the World for demons to choke people to death! I know a preacher's wife who got choked to death that way while we were holding a meeting up in Canada! She kept complaining about this devil, & she had a lot of spiritual problems & whatnot.
116. THE DEVIL CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITH YOU UNLESS YOU LET HIM IN, UNLESS YOU GIVE HIM THE CHANCE & YOU HARBOUR HIS THOUGHTS & HIS SINS. If you stay close to the Lord in obedience to God & filled with His Spirit, you don't have to worry about the Devil! You may have to battle him quite a few times in other people, but you won't have so much of a battle yourself, amen?
117. AS I USED TO TELL PEOPLE WHO LIKED TO BLAME EVERYTHING ON THE DEVIL, the spirit you have the most trouble with is not evil spirits, it's your own spirit! That's the one that hasn't been conquered yet in a lot of lives & the one that still has free will & free choice. The devils have no free will, they've got no free choice, they've got to do whatever we tell them to do! We have absolute authority over them!
118. YOU CAN GO DOWN THERE & COMMAND THAT DEMON TO LEAVE THE HOUSE & LEAVE THEM ALONE & NOT COME BACK ANYMORE!—But you've got to be outright & honest & open about it & face it & tell everybody so, & they have got to confess it & face the facts themselves & admit it & cry out to God for help & mercy & deliverance! But if they try to conceal it & cover-up & not confess it, they're not going to get rid of it!
119. AND I'LL TELL YOU, YOU ELDERS OF THE CHURCH NEED TO GO DOWN THERE & DEAL WITH GEN IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS! We can't have this going on any longer! Just tell her the facts that if she doesn't get rid of that thing, we're going to [have her leave]—& I don't mean perhaps! We're going to ship her out!—And maybe that will scare her in! I used to say I'd rather scare people into Heaven than to love them into Hell!
120. YOU CAN'T GO PUSSYFOOTING AROUND WITH THE DEVIL, LET ME TELL YOU RIGHT NOW! When you expose a case like that you've got to carry it through, & you have started to expose it already & if you don't get the victory real fast, they could cause a lot more trouble. You've got to nip it in the bud & get rid of it now! When you guys leave here tonight I want you to go to that house & deal with Gen & get her on her knees crying & weeping out before God, confessing her sins & her lies in deceiving us & not telling us the truth about her background & her deviltry & witchcraft & all the rest of it that she didn't tell us!
121. SHE CAME HERE REALLY UNDER FALSE PRETENSES! God showed it to me the first time I looked at her picture. But having heard her testimony & all the other people who recommended her, I thought, "Oh, Lord‚ maybe I'm the one that's weird, maybe I'm just suspicious or a little sceptical or critical or something. Maybe she's just got that funny look, maybe she was born with it or something!" Well, it didn't take long for us to find out, did it?—A little late! I didn't see what else we could do since dear Eman seemed to be so sweet on her & she was already pregnant.—What could we do but bring her along? We thought maybe she'd at least keep house.
122. WHEN YOU MISS THE PATTERN SOMEWHERE WHEN YOU'RE WEAVING‚ THE FURTHER YOU GET, THE WORSE THE MARK IS‚ THE WORSE THE MISTAKE LOOKS, & you're going to have to go down there now & deal with it! We have chased the Devil out in the open & now he's not even ashamed to expose himself, he wants his picture in the paper! The nerve! He thought he was pretty smart that night to get Eman to draw his picture. Well, he's not smarter than God!
123. IT'S LIKE THE OLD STORY, IF YOU GIVE HIM ENOUGH ROPE HE'S GOING TO HANG HIMSELF! Well, he's got enough rope & now you'd better go down there & hang him & pray for them & get rid of him!—Or tell Gen if she doesn't, we're going to have to [have] her & the baby [leave]! We cannot have a problem like that in a high–security Colony this close to us, this close to the Source‚ particularly in the art ministry! So there's a little lesson for you & I hope you got the point!
124. FOR GOD'S SAKE, IF YOU PRAY FOR ANY GIFT OF GOD NOWADAYS IN THE LAST DAYS, BELOVED‚ PRAY FOR THE GIFT OF DISCERNMENT! "The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith‚ giving heed to seducing spirits & doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron!" (1Tim.4:1,2).—A lot of these different ideas that are taught by cultisms & religions. "If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ" (1Tim.4:6). That's very important. In the Last Days the Devil is really on the job & he's being very very busy! "Put the brethren in remembrance of these things"—well, that's what I'm doing right here this afternoon!
125. I WANT TO REMIND YOU THAT THE DEVIL IS AROUND & HIS DIRTY DAMNABLE LITTLE DEVILS AS WELL, & I want to remind you of something else. How many of you have ever read the Letter "Judas"? (No.71). Well, not too many. Well, I deal with this question in "Judas," a revelation God gave me in London with some problems we were having then with Jethro.
126. WHEN JESUS WAS HERE ON EARTH, HE WAS THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN THE WORLD TO THE KINGDOM OF THE DEVIL!—And His Apostles. So if you were the Devil, what would you decide to do?—Get right into the top echelon! In the Greek‚ the lesser devils are always called "daimons" or demons, but the Devil, Satan himself, is called "Diablos." And when it says that the Devil entered into Judas, it doesn't say a demon, but it says that it was the Devil himself, Diablos! Satan himself! He didn't leave that job to any lesser little devil, Satan himself was a disciple of Jesus Christ for three-&-a-half years, entering into Judas whenever he felt like it, apparently, & travelling around with Jesus on the road!
127. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE THE DEVIL FOR ONE OF YOUR DISCIPLES?—Always pointing up Jesus' mistakes, always correcting & criticising, always accusing? As you'll notice it's even recorded in the Word. There's a book called The Devil's Disciple—maybe we ought to write a Letter on "The Devil the Disciple!" So if we are the counterpart of the original Jesus Revolution, the first Disciples, who do you think the Devil's after today & where do you think he would like to attack the most?"—As close to the top as he can get! So watch out for him! Don't let it be you, amen?
128. WE'RE NOT PLAYING GAMES, BELOVED! WE ARE IN A SERIOUS WARFARE & YOU HAD BETTER BE CONSTANTLY ON YOUR GUARD, ready at all times to fight any attack of the Enemy, who is going to wait for your unguarded moment & for the time when you're a little weak & a little out of it & out of sorts & out of tune & out of the Spirit & out of touch! He's going to sock you so hard it might knock you for a loop because you didn't stay in the right spirit, you didn't stay close to the Lord, you weren't obedient, you didn't do what you should do, you weren't on your guard, praying without ceasing, giving thanks always, staying close to the Lord in the Spirit!
129. HE WILL HIT AS HIGH & AS NEAR THE TOP AS HE CAN GET, & HE HAS! He has already struck not far away‚ & I doubt very much if he is through—until we get through with him & get down there & deal with him & with his channel & close it forever & get that girl in the right spirit to confess her background, her sins, her dealings with Satanism & spiritism!
130. IT SLIPPED OUT IN HER CONVERSATION THAT SHE EVEN USED TO BE IN SEANCES AS A CHILD! She never told us that. She could probably tell you a lot of things that would confirm what I got on her in the Spirit the first time I ever saw her picture. I think she has been closer to being a witch than she is willing to confess. Maybe she doesn't even know it.
131. SO YOU HAD BETTER THROW THE FEAR OF GOD INTO HER & TELL HER SHE'D BETTER GET RID OF THAT THING FAST OR WE WILL HAVE TO [HAVE] HER [LEAVE]! We cannot take a chance on having her here disrupting God's Work, not even if I have to get up & move again! In these cases you either get deliverance‚ or you've got a new enemy. Like your dear magician friend‚ Brother Riquard! There is a big article in the Paris newspapers, he put out a full blast against us! See‚ if you don't get rid of those devils, complete total victory, utter deliverance‚ they will turn on you at the time you least expect it & when you're at your weakest & kick you in the groin where it really hurts, saying they have been one of you, & then turn Judas! I've told you about this before.
132. THE WORST ENEMIES ARE THOSE WHO COME FROM OUR OWN RANKS! They become our most bitter enemies. They have to do it to defend themselves, like Judas did. They don't want to get right with God, they don't want to get rid of their devils, they don't want to get rid of their evil spirit, they don't want to straighten out, they don't want to get rid of their sins, so when we expose them face-to-face, they go back!
133. AND THEN TO VINDICATE & JUSTIFY THEMSELVES FOR GOING BACK‚ THEY HAVE TO START TO ATTACK US & SAY IT WAS ALL OUR FAULT BECAUSE WE'RE SO EVIL!—Like Judas did. To prove that they're no longer one of us, they have to turn around & betray us & become a bitter enemy to try to convince the System that they are now on the System's side, that they really are no longer one of us. Then they have to be really against us.
134. I'M ALWAYS LEERY OF THESE PEOPLE WHO DON'T GET THE VICTORY INSTANTLY & ARE DELIVERED WHEN THEY JOIN. These people that have to be nursed along & nursed along & namby-pambied & petted & pampered to try to get them to get the victory, & persuaded & prayed with & dealt with for hours & hours of God's precious time & God's precious leaders wasted strength! And then in the long run they finally go back anyhow & it's a big waste of time!
135. I'VE KNOWN SOME OF OUR LEADERS TO DEAL FOR HOURS WITH SOME OF THOSE GOD-DAMNED BACKSLIDERS THAT I WOULDN'T HAVE SPENT TWO MINUTES WITH!—And that's what they are, God damned, cursed & judged of God! Anybody you've got to nurse & namby-pamby & pamper & pull along, for God's sake, don't get him in in the first place! Give him the Gospel, try to get him saved, but for goodness sake, leave him out there someplace where they'd rather be in the first place! If you've got to persuade them & over-persuade them to come along‚ forget it!
136. JESUS JUST DROPPED THE HINT to the disciples, "From henceforth ye shall catch men! Come follow Me & I'll make you fishers of men!" (Mt.4:19). Bang! They dropped everything & made an instantaneous decision & forsook all on the spot & followed all the way to the death!
137. I DON'T GO FOR THESE DISCIPLES YOU'VE GOT TO PULL ALONG & PAMPER, PET & PIDDLE WITH—THEY MAKE ME SICK & THEY MAKE GOD SICK! They're lukewarm, not hot or cold. They're just playing around & toying with us & they make Him vomit—"spue them out of His mouth!" (Re.3:16). They're the most sickening kind of people there are! I'd rather see them outside, a damn honest sinner where they can do a hell of a lot less damage!
138. YOU SEE, YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH HIDING IN BIG COLONIES, the little devils can get lost where they can hardly even be noticed & just cause a little trouble here & there without raising too much of a stir. But you can't get away with it in a small Colony with four to six people facing each other every day! Let me tell you, that devil's going to be exposed sooner or later! With your eyes on each other everyday, all day long, sooner or later you're going to spot'm‚ no matter how stupid you are, somebody's going to spot them!
139. THAT'S WHY PEOPLE LOVE THOSE BIG CHURCHES! I've told you that a thousand times, how many times do I have to tell you? You can get lost in them! The preacher could never spot them, he wouldn't know the difference whether they were demon-possessed & living for the Devil or what! He's got too many people to take care of, he can't tell what everybody's doing!
140. BUT IF YOU LIVE IN THE SAME HOUSE WITH THEM DAY IN & DAY OUT, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, & there's nobody there but you, me, thee, thou & no other, sooner or later you're going to find out, no matter how dumb you are, even if you haven't got the gift of discernment! Some of you didn't necessarily have to have the gift of discernment to see that picture!
141. SO I'M HOPING THAT THESE SMALL COLONIES ARE GOING TO BE ABLE TO FERRET OUT A LOT OF THESE GOD-DAMNED LITTLE DEVILS that give us all this trouble, because they're going to have to face them everyday! They used to be able to choose their company, like Sally & Justus used to be able to choose their company or stay to themselves & not associate with anybody! People in those big Colonies, if they don't like somebody, they don't have to live with them! They can just associate with the people they like to associate with.
142. BUT LET ME TELL YOU, WHEN YOU LIVE WITH ME HERE IN MY LITTLE COLONY OF US SIX—THEE, THOU, THEE, ME & NO OTHER—YOU ARE STUCK WITH ME & I AM STUCK WITH YOU & WE'VE GOT TO FACE EACH OTHER EVERYDAY! We have got to live together in peace or else, & if you don't like me, that's tough! If I don't like you, that's rough! We'd better get to liking each other pretty soon or we're not going to be able to hold the thing together! You can't just go off & crawl in your hole & live like you're in another Colony & never have any communication, or fellowship.
143. I MAY CRAWL IN MY HOLE ALL DAY LONG TO GET MY LETTERS DONE, but I come out once in awhile & sit & fellowship with you nearly every day sometime, right? I have to! I happen to be the District Shepherd! I made dear Alf over here our Colony Shepherd‚ the main reason being I don't want to have to make out your report!—Ha! Along with the job I thought he might as well have the title! But let me tell you‚ you can't sit at a table this small or on a couch in this little group day after day‚ night after night, without sensing if people are with you & in tune or if they're not!
144. IF YOU'RE IN SOME KIND OF A BIG MONSTROUS BLOB where you're not even in the same building half the time & you don't know hardly anybody except a few little people maybe you happen to like‚ & you just don't associate with the ones you don't like, how can you know what's going on? But if you live in a Colony of four people like they do down there, let me tell you, either you've got to get it together like a husband & wife or you're going to be a thousand miles apart in the Spirit!
145. AND JUSTUS & SALLY HAD BETTER WAKE UP FAST THAT THEY CANNOT JUST IGNORE THESE PROBLEMS & just separate themselves from these‚ what amounts to almost like babes in their Colony, & not deal with these issues & have it out & get it together! If they can't do it any other way but sleep with each other's wives or something to get a little fellowship, it might do them good to do a little swapping! That'll shake them up‚ wouldn't it? If Jus had to sleep with that woman he might decide to get on her case about her problems! And if he found out that his wife had a lot more in common with Eman, that they were more spiritually in tune with each other than he is, he might start getting on his problem!
146. THE LORD SHOWED ME SOMETHING ABOUT JUS BEFORE HE EVER CAME HERE, WARNING ME SOMETHING ABOUT HIM. God bless you Jus, I love you, but it's the truth! He was so damn scared of having Sally get close to me down here that he made sure he got a marriage ceremony & a wedding certificate before he left London, to make it legal. And he's hovered over her & smothered her ever since! I don't think he's been too sad about us not being able to get together or meeting them or greeting them or seeing them, he's been scared to death!
147. CUTE LITTLE ALF, HE'S ONE OF THE BRAVEST MEN IN THE REVOLUTION, KNOWING MY REPUTATION! I think I heard Sara laughing! I'll tell you‚ it's one of the most humbling things that can ever happen to you! Some of these guys that think "all things" is for the purpose of having a spree, have a few things to learn! It is a crucifixion, not a spree!—And if you don't look on it as such & realise that that's what it means, a terrible humbling & a real crucifixion of the flesh, then you're going at it with the wrong spirit entirely!
148. WHEN I GOT OUT "THE LAW OF LOVE" (NO.302C) WITH THAT PICTURE ON THE FRONT, "ARE YOU WILLING TO BE NAILED?", THERE WERE ENTIRELY TOO MANY GALS WHO WANTED TO BE NAILED REAL QUICK!—And too many boys willing to nail them!—For the wrong reasons!—Not for the sake of real spiritual fellowship & unity & humility & love! Do you know what love is? It's humility! Do you know what humility is? It's love! They are totally inseparable! You cannot have real love without real humility, & if your kind of love hasn't got humility‚ it is not love at all! If it is a Cancerian crablike possessiveness motivated by pride for selfish possession, this is not love!
149. LOVE IS TOTAL HUMILITY & TOTAL SACRIFICING, willing to not only lay down your life, but also your wife, if necessary, for the Cause & for the sake of the Cause & for unity & humility & oneness! And if they haven't been [sharing] over there, maybe that's what's wrong with them! That's a pretty hot doctrine, huh? And if any one of them is not willing to, then he doesn't really love that one.
150. IF YOU'RE NOT WILLING TO GIVE YOUR WIFE, YOU'RE NOT WILLING TO GIVE YOUR LIFE! You don't really love them all the way & you haven't really forsaken all & you really haven't given up everything. You're still hanging on to the last vestige of private property, you're still selfish, you're still proud & you still don't have all-out real 100% love! Is that a shocker? It shouldn't be, you've heard it before!
151. I WOULDN'T NECESSARILY SAY BY ANY MEANS IN THIS CASE THAT'S THE CURE, but it just might help humble their God-damned pride a little & make them a little less choosey & cozy-cozy & cliquish & clannish, drawing a circle & shutting the others out. Maybe they need to draw a circle & take them in! I'll tell you, when the Lord first dropped that bomb of "All Things" on us, it sure did some things to us & it made a change in our lives & our fellowship & our relationship & our love & our humility!
152. I THINK THAT'S ABOUT THE MOST HUMBLING THING GOD EVER GOT ME INTO, THE MOST HUMILIATING THING! It's nothing I'm proud about a bit! I crack jokes about it & try to make it sound funny sometimes, but it's not funny, it's a heavy responsibility. It's a real burden in some ways because it's the burden of love & humility & total oneness, total unity, & if you're not willing to go that far, you're not really one Family together, believe it or not.
153. THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU HAVE TO, NECESSARILY, BUT GOD KNOWS YOUR SPIRIT! You may have to think you have to & you may go right to the brink like Abraham did with Isaac, where you think you've got to slay your Isaac & lay your wife on the altar‚ or your husband, but then if God sees you're willing‚ He knows your heart, He knows your spirit, He may not require it of you.
154. WHEN GOD IS DEALING WITH YOU SPIRITUALLY, IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU HAVE TO NECESSARILY ALWAYS FULFIL IT PHYSICALLY, He just wants to know if you're willing. He wants to know if you're really willing to go that far, if you do have that much love & if you are that humble. Sex is just about the most humbling thing in the World as far as I'm concerned! I mean it! That's getting down really to the nitty gritty where you can't hide anything. It's pretty hard to hide anything from your partner if you have to have sex with them!
155. HOW CAN YOU HAVE SEX WITHOUT SPIRITUAL RAPPORT? How can you have sex without some kind of fellowship mentally & spiritually? But I suppose there are some of these off-again on–again gone–again Flannigans who don't need that! To them it's just a hunk of dog-eat-dog in the street & it doesn't really mean anything. But to me it means something! If you have the right attitude toward sex, then you have the right spiritual attitude & you don't just jump on & jump off of every girl that comes along, or get in bed with every boy that comes along, just like you were eating another meal or meat or something! I never have gone to bed with a girl yet, at least in recent years, but what the Lord had to really give me an outright revelation before I'd go that far!
156. MAYBE FLY–KILLING'S NOT YOUR BAG‚ SON! That's what you've got to learn, if you're not good at something‚ for God's sake don't try to keep insisting on that job! Give it to somebody else & let them have a try! God bless you, Son, for trying anyhow. He's got the sweet spirit to try to be helpful. We can't get rid of all these flies as long as we leave the window open, but we need the window open for air. That's a good illustration too: Spiritually you're not going to get rid of those devils until you get them out & close the door so they can't come back in! As long as you've got something in your life that lets them in, you're not closing the door, you're leaving it wide open.
157. I THINK JUS WAS DAMN SCARED IF HE GOT SALLY THIS CLOSE TO ME SHE MIGHT WIND UP IN BED WITH ME!—And you know these Cancers! Wow! God bless you, Jus. I haven't heard much from Sally since she got down here, all of a sudden Jus has a tremendous spurt of letter-writing & does most of the communication. Whereas it used to be Sally that I heard the most from, lots of little notes & love letters & comments on my Letters & her reactions, & we had real communion in the Spirit & real good communication! But I haven't had much communication since Jus decided to take her over & totally possess her & smother her & build a fence around her & do all the communicating for her so she wouldn't have to. (Thank God she's free now!—And still typing for the Lord‚ GBH!)
158. WELL, GOD BLESS YOU JUS, I LOVE YOU & APPRECIATE YOUR COMMUNICATIONS, BUT BELIEVE IT OR NOT JUSTUS, SALLY WAS MY FIRST LOVE & I knew her & her spirit a long time before I knew yours, & I have really lost something. I feel something is missing & I have really felt it. I've been deeply hurt for awhile. Maria said, "Well, now they're together here, Jus is doing the communicating." But I'll tell you right now, that didn't take its place! You can't go handing me a pair of bedroom slippers for the fellowship I want to have.
159. I MISS HER & I HAVE MISSED HER SPIRIT & HER INSPIRATION & HER ENCOURAGEMENT & HER LOVE! I have really missed her & I have felt like she's almost been shut out, believe it or not, because Jus has been pretty possessive. That's the truth, Justus, & you know it! You know you were scared to death of me when you brought her down here, & you'd better be scared if you're not unselfish enough to have total love & total humility & be willing to totally sacrifice & forsake all & give everything, including your wife!
160. I DON'T NEED HER SEXUALLY! MY LORD, I'VE GOT ENOUGH WOMEN TO KEEP BUSY! I can't even keep the ones I've got as happy as I'd like to! I wish I could! One of them just about wears me out, especially one as sexy as that little one over there, God bless her! She is a bomb, Brother! I don't see how you guys could miss the explosion even if you were in the kitchen! (Maria: You started that one!) I started it? You rascal! Since when is just merely unzipping my pants starting it? Ha! Ha! (Maria: You told me you wanted me to!) Well, you asked me to! Ha! Ha! And I loved it! That's why I love her, she's not ashamed or afraid to take the initiative, & I like it‚ & I always like it, & I want it all the time! I don't know any time I don't want it. Now we're getting down to the facts! Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts!
161. HE THAT WITHHOLDETH IT TENDETH TO POVERTY‚ BUT HE THAT SCATTERETH ABROAD IT INCREASETH! (Pr.11:24). The minute you start withholding anything‚ believe it or not, including your wife, watch out! I have had to go through some hellish experiences on that‚ as Maria knows, where I went through my Gethsemane while she was being crucified‚ but it has reaped some good results & Arthur is one of them‚ thank God! It took two of my queens to win him, but he's worth it! Boy, you should read his ecstatic letters‚ he's still on Cloud 9! He's never found anything like this kind of a life in all his years, he is so happy & is so madly in love with Becky. Every time he writes her name he puts a little flower on it. And he's crazy about the kids & he loves this life—it was worth it! (Until he too got possessed with jealousy over Becky!)
162. BUT I'LL TELL YOU, I WENT THROUGH SOME HELL! It wasn't easy! It wasn't easy to see her go out that door, climb in that car & away they went, knowing what was going to happen. She may not have known, but I knew! Praise God! So it's kind of a dangerous kind of fishing but you can catch some pretty big fish that way sometimes. Oh, you lose a few too, just don't lose your bait, for God's sake! Hang on to that!
163. YOU GUYS WHO HAVE GOT FLIRTY FISHES HAD BETTER REMEMBER YOU'RE THE FISHERMAN, & STAY THERE WITH A LINE ON THEM, DON'T LET THEM GET OUT OF LINE! I made sure that she phoned us & kept in touch even when she was away, the first time we'd been separated in years. And when we were gone, God bless dear Becky, she wasn't going to lose him either, she hung on, hung on by her teeth!—Even when he flipped out & went totally out of the spirit & his diabolical damnable demonic relatives tried to turn him against us! Boy, the Devil sure did some battling!
164. WELL, I WANT TO GIVE YOU A LITTLE TIME TO GO DOWN THERE & TRY TO SETTLE THAT HASH IF YOU CAN. I hope you don't do too much screaming & hollering & shouting, you can be just as firm with the Devil without screaming at the top of your voice! Sometimes when you holler & yell it's more apt to scare other people than it is the Devil!
165. HE KNOWS THE NAME OF JESUS, HE KNOWS YOUR POWER & AUTHORITY TO COMMAND THE DEMONS! We have authority over them & they have to obey us! Do you believe that? It happens! You don't have to let them get away with it! Just tell them to get their God-damned Hell out of there, & I mean it's God-damned Hell when they're around, too! Tell the devil to get out! On your way, buddy! I hate to dump him on this island, for God's sake, maybe you ought to pray him off the island & dump him in the sea or something! Poor Atlanta, she's got enough problems out there! You haven't heard about her, have you? Someday you will! (See "Atlanta!" No.615.)
166. ATLANTA IS THE GODDESS OF THIS ISLAND! She's like a mermaid & she lives out there in the bay most of the time‚ but of course she's a spirit. She sure knows me! I haven't seen her for awhile. Every time I talk about her I nearly flip out! Lord help her! Praise God? Do you believe it? I do, I know! I've fucked her! It's a very spiritual thing, but it's symbolic! She pleads for these children on this island, her children.
167. I WAS UP IN THAT OROTAVA BAR, & those ancient wooden farming implements & artifacts on the walls up there, through which the departed spirits scream at me every time I go in there, mournfully wailing & weeping, begging me to help their children! I don't know how I can help them, I just pray & ask God to help them! I don't know what to do for them. Strange we should go there, the only place in town it seems where the young people gather. About the only people who ever eat in there are the college & high school kids. And what can I do? All I can do is sit there & pray for them. I don't dare do much witnessing except personally.
168. WE CAN'T LITNESS, WHAT CAN WE DO? Well, I think there's coming a time when I'm going to leave anyhow & we won't have to worry about my security in the whole World again! I'll tell you, we're going to drop a bomb on this place they'll never get over! This place is going to get hit with the lit! Praise God! Amen? You may find yourself a Regional Shepherd, Alf, of a whole new field in Spain! Pretty nice quarters too! I hope somebody will take it over. I always have to go sooner or later, always on the move & never stay more than a couple of years in one place, it isn't safe. Besides, by that time our job is usually done there. So God's will be done.
169. ANYHOW BELOVED, PLEASE HELP US BY GOING DOWN THERE NOW & HELPING THEM. And for God's sake, Mother Eve dear, don't try to start some kind of a sex revolution on your own without the power of the Holy Spirit & a lot of spiritual knowledge & surety that something's the will of God, otherwise you may really cause an explosion! Because Jus is about as possessive as a Cancer can be with Sally, & from what I hear‚ Genesis is about as jealous as a woman can be of Eman, & we don't want any more problems than we've already got! Praise God?
170. BUT I'VE HAD THE FEELING FOR A LONG TIME THAT POOR SALLY HAS BEEN KIND OF CHOKED & SMOTHERED & FENCED IN & MAYBE NEEDS LIBERATING‚ & poor Eman needs more spiritual fellowship than he's apparently getting. Jus is a very good organiser, he's an excellent organisational man, very good on the practical things & that's the main reason he's here, to be the Colony Manager. I wish he was spiritual enough to also be the Colony Shepherd‚ & if he were, he would have taken better care of his sheep & had better fellowship with them & not let them get in such a state!
171. YOU CAN'T JUST SHUT YOURSELF OFF FROM YOUR SHEEP & IGNORE THEM & LET THEM GO THEIR WAY WHILE YOU GO YOUR WAY, OR PRETTY SOON YOU'LL HAVE NO FLOCK! The first thing the shepherd has to do is what? What does the Word say? "See to the state of thy flocks!" (Pr.27:23). You'd better get busy & take care of your sheep, that's your first most important job! No matter how much work you've got to do or how many very important jobs you may have besides that, you'd better take care of those sheep right along with it, or you may find that you've got no job & your flock is gone & you're a shepherd with an empty fold—& what fold needs a shepherd with no sheep?
172. JUS HAD BETTER GET BUSY & GET INTO FELLOWSHIP WITH THOSE SHEEP DOWN THERE & keep them spiritually fed & cared for & nourished & loved or he's going to be out of a job!—And I mean it‚ Jus! You had better start taking care of your sheep, including Sally! If you can't give her the spiritual nourishment she needs, I'll send for her myself & bring her up here! How would you like that? I warn you, she was my first love! Before I ever heard of you, I had Sally!
173. SO YOU'D BETTER FEED MY SHEEP‚ INCLUDING EMAN! You'd better protect them‚ including Genesis, from the Wolf who managed to get his picture painted in our paper, or you're not being a good shepherd! Just business & shearing the sheep & telling the tale of the wool is not all there is to being a shepherd, do you get me? You have to take care of those sheep as well & feed them & protect them‚ provide for them, care for them, love them & keep them in fellowship with each other, or you are failing in your task as a shepherd!
174. IF YOU GUYS DON'T GET IT TOGETHER, THERE'RE GOING TO BE SOME CHANGES MADE! We'll get people together, the ones that can get it together, amen? What I wrote in "One Wife" I mean, what the Lord gave us in that, to unite those in heart & unite them in spirit, & we'll unite them in body too if we have to, so watch out! (No.249).
175. NOTHING IN THE REVOLUTION IS EVER PERMANENT EXCEPT GOD! This business of trying to make your marriage permanent & safeguard it & safely insure it by getting it legalised before you left, ain't necessarily so! You'd better trust in the Spirit of God to make something permanent instead of a God-damned piece of paper from the hellish System!
176. I DON'T HAVE ANY PIECE OF PAPER & I'll bet my bottom—well‚ that's good enough—that mine's about as lasting as any without a God-damned System piece of paper! I get inspired when I get mad at something, don't I? I think the kids like me better when I'm mad than when I'm glad, because they know I mean it! I don't know whether you ought to let Jus listen to this or not, but maybe it will do him good & shake him up a little because it's partly his fault! (He finally left!)
177. JUS, YOU FELL DOWN ON THE JOB, ISOLATING YOURSELF FROM YOUR SHEEP instead of taking care of them & having fellowship—really sweet, loving fellowship. There's not a day goes by that I don't hug & kiss everybody in my little family in this house, probably several times a day, including the boys, right? And keep in touch, sweetly in love, spiritually & physically. Real communion & fellowship at the table & in the living room. We spend hours almost every day in real fellowship.
178. IF AS BUSY AS I AM I CAN SPEND AN HOUR OR TWO OR MORE EVERY DAY IN FELLOWSHIP WITH THESE KIDS, WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, Justus, that you can't spend some real hours of real fellowship in the Word & in sweet fellowship together with yours? Any of you, Beloved! Don't ever get so God-damned busy you haven't got time for the sheep! If you are that busy, you're too damned busy! Anybody who hasn't got time to fellowship with his wife or her husband or your helpers or your cook or your maid or your babysitter, or even the gardener or the postman, is too busy!
179. THE GARDENER NEVER COMES TO THIS HOUSE BUT WHAT I SEND SOMEBODY OUT THERE TO TALK TO HIM! How much time have you been spending with your maids? The maids never came to our house but what I spent time talking to them, loving them up, kissing them, hugging them, giving them all they could take, sometimes a little more! Some of them liked it—I think Margarita liked it! Give her my love! Give her a special hug & a kiss next time you see her, okay? Tell her it's from me!
180. IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT TIME TO SPEND WITH YOUR FLOCK‚ BELOVED, YOU'RE TOO BUSY! You're no pastor if you're not spending time feeding & pastoring the sheep. I don't mean some kind of a stiff, cold‚ formal dutiful Bible reading & a dutiful cold‚ stiff prayer‚ I mean really loving them up‚ if you have to go to bed with them—which I do every now & then!
181. IF THEY NEED IT, I GIVE IT TO THEM! I give them what I think they need. I don't give them as much as they need but I give them all I've got, & all I can, praise the Lord? If that's what it takes to keep them happy, I try to keep them happy! Amen? And all the women said? (Amen!) God bless them! It wasn't too enthusiastic‚ I don't think, except for one of them! And all the women said: (Amen!!!) What? I thought I even heard an amen from Sara, God bless her!
182. I TRY TO LET THEM KNOW I LOVE THEM! Do you think I love you? Do I show it? Do you know it? Everyday? Well, just about everyday. We have our little happy time every night. Sometimes we get up steam & get going at lunchtime & don't get done till night! That's why I hate to come out for lunch sometimes, because I know I might never get back in again! If I get going it's hard for me to stop! So I kind of got myself on a schedule where we eat lunch separately so I don't get going too much. Then when it comes suppertime, my day's work is done & I don't mind sitting & talking.
183. I TALK TOO MUCH SOMETIMES & KEEP THEM UP TOO LATE, BUT WE GET A FEW GOOD LESSONS OUT OF IT! We sit down here on the couch together & the fire burns—it's too hot for the fire now, so we just light candles to make it nice & cozy—& we just sit here & talk & fellowship. We don't make it some kind of a stiff formal worship service: (Dad imitates a preacher:) "Well now, dearly beloved, shall we pray? Will you now kindly open your Bibles to such-&–such? Shall we read together responsively? I shall read the first verse!"
184. WE JUST SIT & TALK ABOUT WHATEVER WE FEEL LIKE TALKING ABOUT! I've told them here, "Listen, I spend all day with the Lord getting your inspiration & putting it on paper for everybody, so why should I spend all my time with you giving it just to you when everybody needs it? So if you want any inspiration, get it off the paper, not me! You can get it from the Lord the way He has given it for everybody! There's no reason why I should have to do double-time with you!" About the only reason I can see the Lord's done it a few times here is because Maria stuck the mike under my mouth every time she sees I'm starting to roll, & she gets down a new lesson!
185. I'M JUST TEACHING IT TO THE LITTLE FAMILY HERE, BUT SHE FIGURES IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE WORLD, PRAISE GOD? So we've got a few good lessons that way! They sure are one Hell of a mess, rambling & rolling around Robin Hood's barn, picking daisies & around everywhere like this one! But anyway, I did start off at least with a Scripture text today‚ didn't I? But now I've quit preaching & some of the fellows down at the Glass House are probably going to think I've gone to meddling—amen, Jus?
186. WELL, I'LL TELL YOU, IF YOUR PREACHING DOESN'T GO TO MEDDLING, IT'S NOT MUCH GOOD! If your preaching is not going to affect your living & the way the others live with you, if you're not meddling in their daily affairs & making sure to keep things straight, if you're not meddling in their spiritual life, if you're not meddling with their daily needs, if you're not meddling with whether they're happy & satisfied & contented & loved enough & whatever they need, then your preaching is just so much hot air! If your preaching hasn't gone to meddling, it's not good enough!
187. YOU'D BETTER GET DOWN THERE & GET BUSY & PRAY FOR THOSE FOLKS NOW & TRY TO GET THEM STRAIGHTENED OUT before we have to ship them all away & get a new batch if we have to!—If I have to move to do it! We cannot have any shenanigans going on if they're going to result in the Devil creeping into our very publications!
188. IN A WAY, THEY'RE ALL GUILTY, & in a way we're guilty too, because I have sensed it in the Spirit & I have let them get away with it as long as it didn't seem to have any bad results. But now you see that it did, we didn't get away with it, I didn't take care of them as I should have. Now it's come to a state of emergency & we've got to send a couple of little girls down there to try to ferret out the rat!
189. WELL, I THINK NOW AFTER THIS YOU GUYS OUGHT TO BE ABLE TO GO DOWN THERE & ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING! Take authority over the Devil in the Name of Jesus Christ & cast out that devil & get that God-damned Chinese spook out of there! That's an absolute Chinese demon mask that that rascal painted, his own portrait on God's throne! Damn it, it makes me mad that you would have let the Devil in like that! Well, we're not going to, let me tell you!
190. GOD BLESS DEAR EMAN FOR ACKNOWLEDGING HIS MISTAKE & BEING WILLING TO DO IT OVER! It's time for Genesis to confess her mistakes of not acknowledging her weaknesses & confessing her past‚ glossing over & making light of her former demonic associations, spiritism‚ seances & Satanism! It's no light thing! If you've had anything to do with the Devil at all, it's no light encounter!
191. AND GOD FORGIVE SALLY FOR FALLING IN LOVE WITH JUSTUS WHEN I WAS HER FIRST LOVE! And I am jealous of her & I resent it‚ believe it or not! Does that shock you? You'd better watch out about her‚ Jus old boy, & take mighty good care of her, or‚ as one of our Spanish friends said the other day, "my harem will increase!" We have quite a harem here! These guys really are psychic on this Island, they can even tell when I'm sick, they're so sensitive in the spirit! But it's pretty close to the truth & I wouldn't mind increasing it by another one by any means if she needs it‚ rather than have her smothered & her spirit killed & just die on the vine & live like a Systemite! This is a Revolution, Beloved!
192. AND EMAN HAD BETTER START LISTENING TO THE LORD INSTEAD OF THE DEVIL & HIS WIFE! I'll never forget the time the Lord rebuked me like He did Adam, "Because thou hast listened to the voice of thy wife!" (Ge.3:17). You know what Adam's trouble was? Not that he didn't believe God, he listened to the voice of his wife instead of the Lord & got in trouble!
193. BELOVED‚ ANYBODY LIKE EMAN IS AS CLOSE TO MY JOB ALMOST AS YOU CAN GET! He has to be inspired! He's got to be able to get in the Spirit the vision of the picture that I am drawing in words that God has presented to me, & try to depict it to the World! I have already said in "The Oh of Art" (No.325A). that that's just about the next most important job in the whole Revolution to mine! And let me tell you, Eman, you'd better stay in the Spirit & close to the Lord & quit listening to other voices, much less the voice of your wife, instead of listening to God!
194. GOD BLESS YOU, GEN, I LOVE YOU, & THIS SESSION IS AS MUCH FOR YOUR SAKE AS ANYBODY'S, but you had better confess your sins‚ Honey, & get right with God & quit trying to cover up & quit trying to hide these facts! Confess them & make a clean breast of them. The way you throw your blouse open to show your titties, you'd better start doing that with your soul!—You may not be so proud of it as you are your bosoms! You guys that have to go down there & see her are afraid to say anything. Well, if I was there face-to-face, this is what I'd tell you, I'd let you have it, sock it to you, & I'm doing it!—'Cause you need it & I mean it! If you don't get rid of that devil, we're going to [have] you [leave]!
195. YOU'D BETTER GET HUMBLED & GET ON YOUR BEST BEHAVIOUR & START CRYING OUT TO GOD & BEGGING GOD TO DELIVER YOU, OR GOD'S GOING TO DELIVER US OF YOU! I hate to say it, but we can't let anybody stand in the way of God's Work, not anybody, I don't care who they are, including me! If I ever get in the way, I hope God wipes me out so you can go on! I mean it! I've asked Him to a few times, but He hasn't done it, so I guess you must still need me. The Devil himself has tried to wipe me out quite a few times, but of course I fight him.
196. AND JUS, YOU'D BETTER GET ON THE JOB‚ SON‚ & GET CLOSE TO GOD & be worthy of the love that God has given you in Sally, for God could just take her away from you & put her where she'd be more appreciated, more loved‚ more inspired‚ more fed, more used & we wouldn't have to be using so damn much messenger service! How about that!
197. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT MADE THE REVOLUTION! I believe in obeying God if it means facing all Hell & high water & turning the World upside–down, including a few people‚ or we wouldn't be here! I'm willing to go to any extreme to get the job done, & I'm not about to begin to let anybody stand in the way, I don't care who the Hell you are! So you'd better every one of you watch your P's & Q's & stay on the ball for Jesus & right with the Spirit of God‚ close to the Lord in obedience to the Lord in the Spirit, or you may be next!—And I don't mean perhaps! Amen?
198. WHEN I WAS WEEPING & AGONISING NIGHT AFTER NIGHT OVER THE ROYAL FAMILY, SO-CALLED, MY OWN CHILDREN, & what I was having to do with them to help liberate the Revolution so it could go on & go far beyond them, I said, "My Lord, give me something to encourage me! I need a Scripture! Am I doing the right things?" And do you know what the Lord said? You know what Scripture I got?
199. "HE THAT SPARED NOT HIS OWN SON, WILL HE NOT FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS?" (Rom.8:32). There's that "all things" again, you can't get away from it! The Bible's full of it! God Himself spared not His Own Son! He sacrificed Jesus Christ in order that He could freely give us all things! He spared not His Own Son‚ Jesus Christ, but let Him die on the cross for you so that you could make it!
200. WELL, IF GOD WAS WILLING TO GIVE HIS OWN SON & let Him be slaughtered on the cross that cruel way for our sakes because He loved us so we could be saved, who am I to spare my own children just to try to save my own family? I could certainly go as far as I have gone, to lay them on the altar & sacrifice them for you, that I may also freely give you all things, every one of you, all over, everywhere, around the World!—And I have even given my wives as well as my children!
201. SO WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO WITHHOLD YOUR WIFE FROM ME IF SHE LOVES ME & IF THAT'S WHAT SHE NEEDS? Poor Alf, he's sitting there thinking, "Well, what's going to happen next?"—Ha! Thank God for a sense of humour! He was sitting there nodding his head, I'll have you know! God bless him! But maybe you'd better talk to your wife about it first, Son, she might have a different opinion!
202. I POINTED OUT TO YOU IN ONE LETTER HOW GOD HAS NOT EVEN WITHHELD HIS OWN WIFE, THE BRIDE OF CHRIST, THE CHURCH, BUT HAS GIVEN HER TO THE WORLD to try & woo & win them & make a flirty fish out of her! Right? So who are you to withhold yours? God has given His life & His wife. (To Corny:) I don't want your wife, I've got plenty of my own! Praise God! Yes I do, I love her! I love Shalom, I love Sara & I love all of you, love to have them all! I'd love them all if I could, I'm just not able! But I do love every one of them in the spirit, "In the spirit‚ in the spirit you can love the girls all day!" Hallelujah! I had to delete a few verses from that poem in case you don't know it! (See "Spirit Tree!" No.194.)
203. "WITH GOD NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE & ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE TO HIM THAT BELIEVETH!" (Lk.1:37; Mk.9:23). Does that mean "all things" or not? That's what it says‚ praise God? Amen? If there's anybody in this outfit who's afraid I might get around to their wife sooner or later, if they're actually afraid of that‚ there must be something wrong! If they don't love me that much, they don't really love me all the way. God bless Alf! Well, Sara's got a good little husband & she doesn't need it, or she shouldn't. Maybe she thinks she does, I don't know‚ she might! But that's just the way I feel about it. (She finally got it!—From me! GBH!)
204. "HE THAT WITHHELD NOT HIS OWN SON BUT FREELY OFFERED HIM UP FOR US ALL!" That's the Scripture I got when I was laying my own children on the altar, & that, believe it or not, is the picture I got when I was praying over Maria & the Lord showed me my Gethsemane & what God went through when He offered up His Own Son. I know now how God feels & felt, when I was sacrificing my little one. Let me tell you, it's not easy, is it? That is the utmost‚ that is the absolute ultimate test, as far as I'm concerned!
205. I THINK IT'S EASIER TO DIE PERSONALLY THAN TO GIVE THE ONE YOU LOVE THE MOST! I mean it! I hope the Lord doesn't have to put you to that test‚ but if He has, well, that's a great test! And if you survive it‚ may great grace be upon you, & it will! He'll give you a lot of grace, God-given grace. Don't pat yourself on the back. Only the supernatural grace & love of God can ever help you to survive such an experience, as we know.
206. GOD BLESS BECKY, SHE SAW WHAT HAPPENED TO ME! She saw what I suffered & how much I loved Maria & how much it hurt & how much I loved that boy Arthur & how much I was willing to give, & when the showdown came that she had to do the same, she was right there ready, God bless her‚ inspired with our own example, praise God?—Or I don't think she could have ever done it. And she's been doing it ever since, God bless her, & he has turned out to be one of the biggest helpers we've got, somebody to take care of her & her children.
207. AND WE NEED HER, SHE'S THE OTHER END OF OUR LIFELINE! We can't do without her, she's our link, our communication link. We can't have her here, that wouldn't do us any good. It might do us some good personally for fellowship, she'd love it, but we need her there, somebody we can trust, somebody whom we really love & we know is absolutely loyal & really loves us all the way to handle our mail, etc.
208. THAT'S WHY GOD HAD TO GIVE ME SO MANY WOMEN! That's one thing women know how to do, they know how to surrender & love a man all the way & be loyal & faithful & devoted & serve you & work hard for love! God bless every one of you, I love you all! I'd love you all right now here in the middle of the floor if I could!—And I am in the spirit! Praise God!—Which is better than the flesh! I don't have much flesh anymore, at least not much strength in the flesh, but I can love spirits! I've got a lot of power in the spirit that He gives me & I can still love you in the spirit! "In the spirit, in the spirit you can love the girls all day!" Here it is girls, come & get it! God bless you! I love you every one! Do you love me?
(TO BE CONTINUED!)