—Are Inspired by the God of Fire!DO 25406/89

1. How could we have done what we have done to evangelise the World in this day and age without modern means of transportation?—Without automobiles, trains and buses to say the least, as well as huge monstrous planes, floating hotels in the sky that transfer hundreds of people per plane across vast expanses of tens of thousands of miles of lands and oceans! And now with a great deal of the Family returning to their home fields and going mobile again, there is going to be a greater need than ever for mechanics!

2. Techi wanted to know what I was going to speak about today. She's like her mother, she always wants to know everything in advance. She doesn't like surprises. She only likes surprises if she's going to be the surpriser! So Techi said, "What are you going to talk about‚ Grandpa?" And I said, "Well, it's a message on transportation." I might call it "The God of Fire!"

3. The Family is going to have to travel, and more and more they're going to have to have vehicles.—And in our Family, the maintenance men are the ones who have usually handled the vehicles also. They've often had to be not only builders, carpenters, plumbers and electricians, but auto mechanics at the same time!—And as our families go back to their homelands, the automobile is going to be their major means of transportation. They're being forced out of the countries where they have ministered for years and thoroughly preached the Gospel and saturated the lands with their Message until the enemies rose up, persecuted them and drove them out!

4. That's nothing to be discouraged about!—Thank God! I've told you time and time again that the day was going to come when we will have finished the job—and we have just about finished! We've preached the Gospel in every country around the World we possibly could until they have forced us out, persecuted us until we've had to flee!

JAPAN TIGHTENING UP!

6. Only a little over a year ago our Work was so booming in Japan that we felt it was necessary to do all we could to guide them and shepherd them and encourage them and inspire them and organise them and to strike while the iron was hot, reap while there was a great harvest! Japan had the greatest freedom of almost any country our Family had gone to, and almost the greatest receptivity!—In spite of a foreign, heathen, Oriental religion! Their religion hardly meant anything to them any more. They knew it hadn't satisfied them, it didn't answer their problems or needs.

7. Most of the common people there heard us gladly, like they did Jesus!—Mark 12:37. It was only the leaders, especially the religious leaders I'm sure, who were not so glad! The established churches that make up the Great Whore of the World are the ones who always ride on the back of the Beast of Government. And when she gets too offended and furious and jealous and envious and sees she's losing some of her sheep, then she goes to work on the government! If she can't stop us by bad publicity and local persecution and whatever else she can try, then she goes to the government and she lies and gives a bad report on us and trots out all the evil lies of our enemies and bad publicity to show the government that we're bad for the country.—Then the government begins to choke us off by tightening the Immigration strings.

8. Only a year ago Japan accepted us freely and had nothing against us! We preached and operated openly for years there‚ 12 to 14 years openly witnessing and litnessing on the streets, Postering and Tapenessing, and now we're Videoing!

VIDEOS!—WE HAVE THE ANSWER!

9. And by the way, they say the Videos are going like hotcakes in a number of countries now! We've never produced anything that has been in such demand! People are just hopeless about their children‚ they don't know what to do with them! They've found that first of all our Musical Audio Tapes fascinate the children, especially the smaller ones, thank God, and even the teenagers love them. Now they're sitting and watching our Videos for hours, over and over! They want to see it every day and they're learning the songs and everything!

10. So we haven't quit yet! We're still ministering! People are desperate about their children, they don't know what to do with them! They know they're a problem and a lot of them have been filled with the Devil‚ especially teenagers today‚ sad to say, in the worst and the most modern so-called "developed" countries. They're developed all right, they've developed some of the worst children in the World!—Absolute demons, little devils, imps, filled with the Devil!

11. But thank God some of them are still innocent and not yet of the age of accountability, and our Music Tapes, Posters and now Videos are being received with open arms and open hearts and becoming a great blessing! The parents are just grabbing at them like drowning men grasping at a straw—or I might say drowning mothers, some of them drowning in children, God bless them—when they find that we have the Answer! TTL! The Love of the Lord solves every problem in the home! PTL!

JAPAN—THEY DON'T WANT THE BOOKS!

12. As I was saying about Japan‚ we worked freely and openly there for 12 to 14 years, and with tremendous results‚ especially considering it was almost a completely heathen country with very few Christians. But Japan is … so tightening up. …

13. And in spite of months of pleading with the Immigrations even for something as worthwhile as our School, and with visible open demonstration of how good our people are and how good our children are and all the rest‚ after months of pleading and applying to Immigrations to let them have visas—any kind of visas, extended visas if possible—the Family there were finally turned down, and all those people who applied were only given a final visa, some of them not even that.

14. So now we're beginning to catch on! It's like the joke about the Jewish salesman who was such a pest they finally threw him down the stairs! Then he came back up to the office from the bottom of the steps, stuck his head in the door, all banged up and battered‚ and said, "Vell, do you vant the books or don't you?" Well, when our folks came back and were refused re-entry to Japan, we finally realised they didn't want the books!

MISSION FIELD TRANSPORTATION!

15. So you say, "What's that got to do with transportation?" Well, the most popular and common form of transportation today is the automobile, and our Family has a lot of'm! They've had a lot of'm before, when they were still in the home countries and had gone mobile, but then when they went to the mission fields they had to abandon them, leave them behind and forsake all!

16. They went to those fields on huge planes or boats, and arrived there with almost no transportation, having to use public transportation because most of those countries don't have too much private transportation, especially the more primitive ones.—And our people have ridden everything you can think of in those countries!

17. A few of them acquired some automobiles in those mission fields, the better developed ones, and some of them even had campers and trailers in order to survive.—Although in most of those countries camping vehicles were not very popular and there was not much accommodation for them, and camping was dangerous!

18. In a lot of those countries it wasn't even safe to camp out! You could wake up with your throat cut, as well as your tent or your camper broken into! Just to see that you had a car and a trailer was evidence enough that you were rich and worth robbing! So the Family didn't use those things very much on the field, except for a few automobiles and buses, etc., and we sort of got out of the Mobile Ministry for awhile.

ADVICE TO HOMEGOERS!

19. But now many of our Family are having to leave their fields, forced out by Immigration policies. They can't stay any more. I said before that pretty soon the Family is going to run out of countries to go to, and they just about have, especially the Eastern countries! So about the only place where they have the freedom to go now is back to their own country, their home fields, and God knows how long even that freedom will last when our enemies begin to realise that they're returning back where they weren't wanted in the first place, where they were driven out in the beginning!

20. We prayed desperately about it! I said, "Lord, what are they going to do now?"—And we've made a number of suggestions. We said, "Well, how about Church in the Home? Keep right on doing what you've been doing in the foreign countries, witnessing openly where you can." Of course, that's also the best way in the World to invite persecution, because they recognise you and they recognise your literature and your Posters and your Tapes.

22. So what are you going to do now? Well, I've said that where you can openly witness, go ahead! Sell lit and Posters and Tapes and now Videos wherever it's possible, wherever you can get away with it, until they put you out or put you off or put you in or whatever they do with you! Establish a little local Outreach Home if you can, and once you get'm saved and converted and really in the Lord, you can invite people in and have a little Church in the Home! Give'm food and fellowship and exercise, help them to get out witnessing etc. Just do what you can‚ whatever you can get away with! In places where they start persecuting you and driving you underground‚ well, just do the best you can to survive underground.

23. The Lord has never failed to supply for us, amen? He has never ever failed to feed His flock. It may be a little tough sometimes, it might be a little difficult, especially now as you get back to home fields where you're well-known. It may not be quite as easy to go out provisioning, you'll certainly have to use some other name, but thank God, our people are very versatile at coming up with new names! I never heard of so many different organisations and names under which we operate in various areas!

GO MOBILE!

24. But then it came to me very strongly that it's going to get so hot even in home countries that you may not be able to establish a stationary Home‚ because they'll find you out and chase you out too soon. … So I said, "Lord, how are they going to do that?" Well, it didn't take much for the Lord to remind me that in the [past] we resorted to motor vehicles‚ campers and trailers, so we could be quickly mobile …‚ virtually in comfort‚ and live economically!

25. There's no more economical way to live than in a camper or a trailer! That's why a vast number of the so-called elderly or senior citizens in the U.S. have resorted to living in what they now call "recreational vehicles." They retire on their small pensions and they can travel around and camp and go South in the Winter and North in the Summer and live cheaper than any other way. Flee the Winter! If the campgrounds where they stay have limits, they can stay the week or two weeks or the month that they're allowed and then move to another one‚ many of which are national campgrounds or forests, etc., and are free.

26. So the very same advice that I gave you years ago is perfectly suited for today: Do your best to finagle a car and a trailer or a camper out of your supporters or your parents or your grandparents or whatever! They'll probably buy you one just to get rid of you! They did last time, right?—Or maybe they'll loan you the money for the down payment, and then you get out and earn the payments. That'll get you out from underfoot with all those screaming little kids! Well, ours aren't screaming little kids, but yelling little kids! When kids play, they yell!

KIDS ARE NOISY!

27. They say the noisiest place to live is near a schoolyard, and that the greatest noise pollution that ranks tops on the list is not air fields, but schools! On the decibel machine, they make the most noise! Those yelling kids out for recess or for lunch, you can hear them for blocks! That's the last place you'd want to live if you want quiet! Even walking down the street either coming to school or going home, they're noisy as can be!

28. Kids are just full of life and verve and vigor and they just have to be letting off steam constantly!—And they let most of it off through their mouths! Kids are just bound to be noisy! Techi is one of the nicest, sweetest little girls in the World‚ but she's bouncy and bubbly and she's always pouring forth! She's bound to be either an actress or singer or teacher or something that makes noise—like me! Thank God for a nice quiet boy like David who seldom speaks at all unless he's spoken to and goes about his work quietly. GBH!

CHALLENGING THE CHURCHES TO WITNESS!

29. So you are being driven home and into the safest type of dwelling, which is a mobile type of dwelling, so that if you have to, you can stay on the run! You can invade a city and then take off, even as we did in the early days. We didn't stick around very long after those demonstrations or after saturating a city with our literature. When our red-robed prophets marched down the streets with their thundering staves, everybody wanted to know what it was about! They'd come and practically mob us and grab the little Warning Tracts from us to know what it was all about!

30. But we tried not to stick around long enough for our enemies to find out what it was about!—Because it challenged them, it exposed them and showed them up for what they were not teaching and preaching and practicing, and it provoked them to jealousy and envy! "We've got to get rid of these people! We don't dare let our people hear this Message or they too will want to be free! They too will want to quit their jobs in the church and go out and evangelise the World! They too will not be satisfied to just sit like bumps on a polished log and not do anything for Jesus! They're going to want to get out and witness and win souls!"

31. I'll never forget what happened to a friend of ours in Florida who decided to open up a mission for the Blacks! He had been a staunch member of the church, even a member of the Board, a reliable churchgoer who put big money into the church, because he was a builder and he made lots of money. But all of a sudden he got a burden for the Blacks … and started a little mission for them. Somehow or another he got the message, God bless him!

PENTECOSTAL NEGROES!

32. The Negroes are … asking for their rights and all this and that! …

33. Just think how fast things can change! When I was a little boy, even when I was a teenager, the most popular Negro music was what they called Gospel music. "Negro Spirituals" is what they called them in the early days‚ because the slaves and the Negroes of the early days of America had been so oppressed and at the bottom of the pole that they had readily accepted Jesus and became very religious. Since they were already rather spiritual because of the background from which they came‚ they readily recognised the World of spirits and were ripe and ready for the Holy Spirit!

34. It was a Negro mission on Azusa Street in Los Angeles‚ California where they first had the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit in America! The Azusa Street Mission was the first to receive that outpouring in the earliest days of the Pentecostal movement. The Negroes are very emotional … and open to the Truth and the Spirit, and very happy to demonstrate it!

35. Boy, if you wanted a real rip-roaring shindig of a lively meeting in those days, all you had to do was go to a Negro church! There was never a dull moment! The music was happy and the sermon was snappy and even if the preacher couldn't read, he got somebody to come down in front and read the Bible for him! The reader would read a verse and then the preacher would comment on it and enthuse on it. They were a shoutin'‚ yellin' noisy bunch, very emotional like the You-Know–Who!—Only we've had to be a little quieter and more underground nowadays because of our enemies and our reputation!

36. Well, we've become more mature now, we don't have to be as childish as some of those early Pentecostals. Just like Paul said to the Corinthians, "Now that I've become a man‚ I've put away childish things."—1Cor.13:11. They loved a lot of those especially noisy gifts of the Spirit, and very childishly liked to play with them. The gifts of the Spirit sometimes became toys. But now as we've become more mature, I think we've become a little quieter and not so noisy and not so like little children playing with toys!

THE CHURCHES—A STUMBLINGSTONE TO THE WORLD!

37. Anyway‚ I was telling you about what happened to our friend in Florida, and you'll find that this is amazingly the attitude of a lot of churches today. In those days there were lots of churches who wouldn't receive the message of witnessing and soul-winning. So the pastor of this church finally called this guy in, because he was missing church services in order to take care of his little mission for the Negroes. The pastor said, "I want to tell you, you need to get back here and attend every church service or you're no longer chief of the Board! You need to be a brick in the wall of the church instead of a stumblingstone out there on the street!"

38. Can you imagine the pastor of a church telling his leading church member that he needed to get back in church and attend every service and be a brick in the wall instead of a stumblingstone out on the street?! I'll tell you, the churches as a whole with all their bricks and all their walls have been a bigger stumblingstone to the World than all of these little ones out on the street witnessing and winning souls!

HUNTINGTON BEACH HARASSMENT!

39. So, what will our Family do when they go home? We've been persecuted there before and we're going to be oppressed‚ persecuted and forbidden again! They used to pull every law they could think of to stop us from witnessing openly on the streets and passing out literature. The cops even accosted a couple of the boys out in front of the Light Club for talking to two teenage girls and said, "You're molesting minors!"—And the two girls piped up and said, "They're not molesting us, they're just talking to us about Jesus!"—Or they'd find a lot of our tracts on the street where some of the hard people had thrown them down, and the cops would tell us, "We're going to arrest you and take you to jail for littering!" We said, "We didn't do it!"

40. I'll tell you, that police force in Huntington Beach were a hard lot! I met one of the chief lieutenants of the police force there later because of an accident that Shad had with his motorcycle. When I went to look over the scene of the accident, some of the officers were still there measuring and this, that and the other, and one of them turned out to be one of the boys who had attended the Christian school where I was a teacher some years back, and he recognised me. I didn't even recognise him, because by this time he was a full-grown huge husky bully! He mentioned to me that he knew who I was and remembered I was a school teacher in his school, but he wasn't the least bit friendly about it. He said, "Oh, I know who you are!" He had the same attitude as the rest of the System and the churches of his city who finally drove us out!

41. Thank God we had mobile vehicles …! Most of the hippies in those days were already living in old trucks and buses and campers, sleeping in the back of vans and whatnot! They were always on the run and they couldn't afford to pay rent‚ so they were ready to travel! So … we found out through some of our young people's parents that the city was planning to really have an all–out onslaught on us! … Thank God we got the word soon enough! … TTL!

42. They're always after the ringleaders, "the big villains who deceived all these young people and brainwashed them and led'm astray" and blah blah! They figure if they can get the leaders‚ they can crush the whole thing. Well‚ they didn't know the Lord and they didn't know His wonderful inspiration!

43. Our kids went out from there to the whole World, and like the Jews said about Apostle Paul, "These that have turned the World upside-down are come hither also!"—Acts 17:6. Actually they were out busy turning the World rightside-up!—But that's upside-down to the churches and a lot of the religious leaders and politicians. And when they found out we were turning too much of their World rightside-up‚ they kicked us out of nation after nation!

BE READY TO RUN!

44. And it's not going to be much different back in the home countries which are now harder than ever, because they've already rejected our Message and have already driven us out! So you'd better be prepared…!—With cars, trucks, vans, campers, trailers, even tents and backpacks! You need to go back and read that series on Mobility from those days. What did we call it then? (Fam: "Have Faith—Will Travel!" was the first one, ML #150.) That's the one! Number 150 is the first Letter on going mobile‚ written way back in '71! And "Have Trailer—Will Travel" (ML #812) is in vogue again!—Because I don't think there are going to be many places that are going to let you get away with your preaching and ministry for very long!

45. In this World today, as wicked and as anti-Christ as it has become‚ and the more the ACs get control and the more apostate the churches become, the more we will need security and underground operations, and the more we'll need to be ready to run! Jesus said, "When they persecute you in this city, flee ye to the next!"—Mat.10:23.

THE PHILADELPHIAN PROPHECY!

46. I think it's very significant that the Lord called us the Philadelphian Church. That was my first call. I didn't even know what I was going to be or do or anything. I was searching for it in those days and we went to this meeting and that meeting and this preacher and that evangelist and this Pentecostal gathering and that Spirit-filled place, we were looking every place to find the right church to belong to!—Ha!

47. I was soul-searching, down on my hands and knees with my forehead on the carpet many times praying for God to somehow show me what to do!—I was out of a job, out of my denomination, married, with a little family and no place to go! "What am I supposed to be, Lord? What am I supposed to do?"

48. How much more could the Lord tell me? Of course‚ I couldn't understand it all then, but in three different places, three different prophets who didn't know me at all, perfect strangers—God bless them, real men and women of God—saw me seeking there and came and laid hands on me and prayed for me, and every one of them quoted to me as a prophecy, the Prophecy to the Philadelphian Church in the Book of Revelation!—Rev.3:7-13.

49. What could be more significant? I began to get the point that somehow I was involved, it even used my name! The Lord said, "I'll open doors that no man can close." …

THE MILLENNIUM, GOG & MAGOG!

50. But the day is coming, thank God, when this particular battle or war will be over! For awhile we'll feel like we've won the war forever, but we're going to find out a few different things about the Millennium which the prophetic teachers and preachers of the past, interpreters of Bible Prophecy, apparently didn't see!

51. While the Devil is kept chained in the Bottomless Pit for a Thousand Years (Rev.20:1–3), we're going to be given our opportunity, and the church is even going to be given its opportunity to do what it didn't do, and to try to save all the people that could be saved, who were ignorant before, and give everybody a chance, until everybody's had his chance and everybody's had his day! Then the Lord unleashes the anti-Christ forces again to separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, the tares from the grain‚ the good grapes who have the good wine from the bad rotten grapes of wrath!—Rev.20:7-8.

52. And then I can't see it happening any other way but that God is going to have to have another Rapture! If the whole Camp of the Saints is surrounded by the forces of the Devil, Gog and Magog‚ their forces are always greater than ours‚ always more heavily–armed and more powerful‚ so what can He do but Rapture them out of it, amen? This is some of the new wine that the Lord has given us that a lot of the churches just pooh–pooh at—if they're even interested in Bible Prophecy at all! And then He's going to wipe out the whole mess completely, even burn off the entire surface of the Earth with fire!—Rev.20:9.

SPEED KILLS!

53. In the good old days of the idyllic World which lasted for almost 6,000 years—except for the last hundred or so—the ideal travel that God allowed Man was very slow and very peaceful, and mostly safe compared to today.

54. But in the past hundred years, as scientific reports have revealed, and as the Bible predicted, "In the Last Days many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased."—Dan.12:4. There have been more forms of transportation invented within the past 150 years than Man has ever known in the last 6,000! Knowledge has been increased more hundreds of times in just the last 150 to 200 years than Man ever learned in the previous thousands! Think of it!

55. Even during this last hundred to two hundred years we've run faster and we've learned more. What does that mean? What does that mean regarding transportation? (Fam: Everything's faster.) Everything's getting faster and faster and faster until Man is Hell-bent for destruction! That's what the Devil is gearing him up for.

56. I remember a famous safety poster on the school wall: "Speed Kills!"—A warning not to drive too fast. Who's behind this push for speed that everybody should travel faster, learn faster and discover more? (Fam: The Devil!)—The Devil! Satan himself!—Because speed kills, and he's out to try to destroy Mankind before God can save'm! And I'm sorry to have to say it, because the Family has to use them, but did you know that automobiles kill more people than anything else?—Auto accidents are the greatest cause of accidental death in industrialised countries.—Speed kills!

57. And what are most automobiles driven by? What is the power that drives a car's engine? (Fam: Combustion?)—Internal combustion.—Fire! The engines in those cars, vehicles and campers are fire-driven! Fire, including atomic explosions, is the greatest physical power on Earth! All of the powerful engines, factories, vehicles and planes and ships are driven by fire!

58. They used to be driven by water or air or drawn with animals—peaceful, beautiful means of transportation, and so slow that people seldom got killed by them. They seldom destroyed people. There's only one man I know of who ever fought windmills—dear old Don Quixote! I don't remember anybody ever being killed by windmills, but I presume there were a few accidents. Whenever there's any kind of motion‚ there's the danger of some kind of accident. There have been famous wrecks of sailing vessels too, but they never even began to kill the millions that fire-driven vehicles are killing today as Humankind are speeding up and racing to destruction!

AIRPLANES & FLYING!

59. There are some people who even love that kind of thing, like car races. They don't have many air races today, but when I was a young teenager we would go every year to the air meets out at the little local airfield, where these little planes, some with two sets of wings and some with one set of wings, would have races. They'd speed around those pylons, which weren't more than about 20 feet high. Sometimes they'd even drag a wingtip and once in awhile it resulted in a crash.

60. The older form of planes was double-wing, which they call bi-planes. They still have them today because they're the slowest means of flying for crop dusters, air surveying, etc. I can remember the first air meet we went to that had mono-planes, they only had one set of wings, only one on each side! When they had the slow bi-planes they even did stunts, like girls up there hanging onto the struts doing a Charleston in a scanty costume, anything to attract attention!

61. Those were the marvellous planes of the past! They even had competitions for what they called "dead stick landings." They were required to land with a "dead stick," meaning a dead propeller, a shut-off engine, to see if they could coast to a safe landing on the air strip. They had to teach them to do that because the planes' engines were not that reliable, but thank God they went slow enough then that they could usually coast to a safe landing.

62. They still have them today in some forms—even gliders with no engines! They put a rope on the nose of the glider and tie it to the back bumper of a car, and as the car picks up speed the glider rolls along the strip until finally it takes off and goes higher and higher! Then they have a trigger that somehow cuts the rope loose, the rope drops, and they soar up and use wind currents to glide around on.

63. Now they even have hang-glider flying where they don't even need a fuselage, they just hang there on the "Jesus pin." They call it the Jesus pin!—The most important pin that holds the thing that the flyer is hanging onto. That's amazing, isn't it?—Only Jesus can save you, and if He failed, then you'd be sunk!

64. And now they've got those new little motorised so-called ultra-light planes where they sit down on the thing instead of hanging on with their hands. They sit in a little bucket hanging down under this glider wing, what amounts to nothing but hang-gliding all over again, only there's a little tiny engine like a lawnmower engine right behind the flyer with a propeller that pushes him along. They've made the hang-glider flyer a little more comfortable and given him a little more power so now he can take off on his own from an airstrip and fly around. All you see is his body hanging up there in the air, the motor's so small you can't even see it. They're getting it more simple all the time!

65. There was a missionary who came out to the Ranch once who was great on flying. He finally cracked up and was crippled because of it. He'd encouraged us to make a nice long landing strip where there were nice rockless fields, and he would fly in and fly out. He got us to put up a wind sock so he could see the direction of the wind, and put out strip markers, and he'd come in and go out. He took Aaron and Ho up several times, and oh, they were just thrilled, all gung-ho for wanting to fly!

66. Then some guy locally was selling his airplane for $1200, and he came over and took the boys up for a flight to get them all revved up to want to buy a plane. So they nagged me and nagged me about wanting to buy that plane. We didn't really have enough cash to spare for that, so I decided to take the story down to the bank—which is against my principles, but the boys insisted. These teenagers can be kind of insistent sometimes!

67. I thought, well, I'll try. I told the boys, "If it's the Lord's Will, okay‚ they'll loan us the money, if not‚ well, that's it!" Well‚ the banker talked me out of it, and he was a flyer himself! He said, "Did you know that the small private planes, considering their numbers, have the highest proportion of fatal accidents of any form of flying?"

68. So you see, it doesn't pay to go so fast! Man was not really meant to fly until the Millennium‚ and then you can fly under your own steam, or the Lord's steam‚ praise the Lord‚ and it will be a lot safer! There will be no accidents as far as I know. You'll have God's Guidance System! Isn't that something, they call it "guidance systems." You'll have the Fire of the Holy Spirit then to propel you and you'll be Holy Ghost–driven, God-guided! But right now it's not so safe even to drive, especially with all the crazy people on the roads—drunks, drug addicts and demon-possessed people! You need to pray every time you go out, "Lord protect us from others! Lord bless and keep us and help us to be prayerful and safe!"

THE GOD OF FIRE!

69. So, the God of Fire! You say, "Why do you call it that?" Well, we don't have much time left‚ but I want to tell you a little bit about the spiritual significance of that.

70. Fire is driving the World to Hell! It kills more people than anything else, if you include automobile and airplane transportation, rockets, atom bombs and all the rest of the Hell bombs and Hell instruments and Hellish transportation that the Devil has inspired Man to invent to put him on the road, and put him there at high enough speeds to kill millions!

71. So now that the Family is being driven to drive, they are going to have to be extremely prayerful and learn safe driving. But safety is not exactly what I have come to talk to you about today.

72. Greek mythology has it that it was Prometheus who brought fire to the Earth to be a blessing to Man, so that Man could cook his meals, the meat that he brought home from the hunt. But fire also became a curse from the very beginning, because his houses would burn down and even his tents would catch fire.

73. I can remember the days when the Indians still lived in tepees out West! They left an opening at the top of the teepee to let the smoke out and they'd make a fire in the middle. Those things were bigger than you realise! Some of them were almost as wide as this room is long, twenty or more feet across! So they could get away with having a fire right there in the middle of the tent and they could live quite warm and comfortably inside there!—Providing the fire didn't get too hot and cause the tent material to catch fire!

74. Of course, I don't believe that story about Prometheus, because I'm sure that God was the merciful One Who gave Man fire to cook his meat and some of the vegetables that are better if they're cooked, and perhaps to warm water to wash in or even wash clothes in. There are a lot of very useful purposes for which you need fire, and campers learn that right away, that a fire is one of the most essential needs that you have! I'm sure God gave fire to begin with.

TENDING THE GARDEN!

75. The Garden of Eden was the ideal environment! It must have been, because that's where God first put Man. They had the perfect climate, they didn't even have to wear clothing and they could pick their food off the trees, they didn't even have to cook it or have plates or dishes to wash or cooking utensils or fires or anything. What a wonderful life! If you want to know what the ideal World is like, that was it!—The kind of a life God designed for Man to begin with.

76. The only transportation Man had then, if he even needed it, was animal transportation. I'm sure he hadn't even invented boats yet‚ because the only body of water nearby was a few rivers, and who needs to go any place if you can pick your food off the walls, so to speak! They didn't have to cook or sew or wash dishes or clothes, all they had to do was what? (Fam: Gardening!) Right! God put Man in the Garden to tend it and to keep it.—Gen.2:15.

77. So as we maintenance men have found out, everything needs a little attention‚ a little attending‚ and to be kept and taken care of.—And even the Lord must have left that job for Man. I suppose if he wanted a little prettier place to live maybe he trimmed the hedges or planted the flowers or whatever it might have been. He was not there to just loaf and laze and spend all his time fucking Eve on the grass, but he was put there to do some work, tend the garden and keep it, but it was about the easiest job Man's ever had.

78. David knows what it means to tend a garden and keep it!—And he works hard and silently at it. He's an ardent flower enthusiast and he decorates our home with his beautiful plants. He has worked diligently and faithfully to tend the garden and to keep it, and mostly he does it quietly. There's hardly a job any quieter than a gardener's job.

79. I used to dream of being a gardener. When I was a young teenager David's age (14) and older I was thinking, "Now I wonder what kind of a job I'm going to have to get when I get out of school and have to earn a living? What kind of a job would I like most?" I loved the outdoors. I loved the flowers and the trees and I used to mow the grass. I used to take care of our gardens where we lived, just like David does. That was my first serious job. My Dad said‚ "Well now, Son, your responsibility is the yard. You keep it clean and mowed and watered, and water the flowers and tend the garden and keep it." And when Adam was young, that's the first job his Father gave him too!

80. I didn't exactly give David this job of tending the garden and keeping it, but he learned it from others and he likes it and he's kept at it on his own and he always treasures every minute and hour that he can be free to tend his garden and flower pots!

ANIMAL COMMUNICATION!

81. And I'm sure the Garden of Eden had lots of animals‚ because the Lord called them in to have Adam give them all names.—Gen.2:19‚20. So if you want to know where they got all those funny names‚ Adam did it! I don't know exactly how those names got passed along and interpreted and translated into different languages, but anyhow, they were named, and that's the only company Adam had at first.

82. So it was a very quiet peaceful life in those days before God created Eve. I'm sure none of the animals talked back or argued. They were just like Mama, peaceful and yielded and quiet. You know how Mama is, she never talks back, she never resists, she doesn't even resent. She's quiet and peaceful and yielded. She doesn't argue, she just presents her case! She just wants to show me the other side of the question sometimes, to give me the balance that I need. That's not arguing, that's reasoning. That's counselling and advising. There used to be a book called Advise and Consent.—She advises‚ I consent!

83. Anyhow, that was the idyllic life, the perfect life.—Except that God couldn't find anybody to keep Man company amongst all the beasts. I'm sure Adam probably had a dog and a cat and birds and all kinds of pets, but for some reason they didn't quite satisfy his needs completely. They were good company, they could even talk then, think of it! They could communicate! How else could he have called them to him and called them all by name?

84. How else could Noah have gotten all those animals into the Ark unless they could communicate? How could he get them to willingly, voluntarily come out of the woods and march up the gangplank into the Ark? You don't picture Noah struggling with that ass with a rope and swatting him with a two-by-four to get him into the Ark, along with his mate, do you? You never saw any Sunday School pictures like that, did you? You always see Noah just standing there like he's calling the animals and they're all filing up willingly and voluntarily going into the Ark of their own free will. So he must have had a pretty persuasive message for them and told them that it was God's Will and, "You'd all better get on board or you're going to drown!"—And they believed it! PTL!

85. Like Noah, I had all kinds of "strange animals or creatures" amongst my followers, but they all believed the Message and they've gotten on board and they're saved! TTL! If you don't think God has a sense of humour, just look at yourself in the mirror sometime!—Ha!

86. So that was the perfect life! Look at the beautiful grass and the trees and the flowers and the birds that fly, and you see how perfectly organised it all is, how beautiful God made everything‚ so well-organised and perfect‚ except for Man who chose the wrong way. The animals in the Garden didn't choose the wrong way‚ the animals didn't fall. As I've sometimes said, "The pets in this house are the only innocent ones here!"

DEMON–POSSESSED PETS!

87. Of course, pets can sometimes be trained badly or inspired badly, they can even get demon-possessed! Thank God we haven't had that problem with any we've ever had! We've always laid our hands on their heads and prayed over them first thing that God would sanctify them, purify them and cleanse them from anything they shouldn't have‚ any diseases or demons or whatever, and we've never had any real bad pets yet‚ I don't think!

88. But I can remember when I was a little boy at somebody else's house they had a cat that got demon-possessed when we came to stay, and it had a fit and literally climbed the walls and ran around the living room and went wild, screeching!—Not meowing, but screeching and growling! I'm sure he was full of the Devil and resented our presence, and they had to get rid of him. It wasn't our cat and it wasn't our house and it wasn't our pet, it was somebody else's‚ but I got a good sample of what an animal can be like if it gets demon-possessed! And animals and creatures like that can get demon-possessed, it's even in the Bible. (See Mat.8:31,32.)

THE PEACE & HARMONY OF GOD'S CREATION!

89. But under normal circumstances and without the interference of the Devil or any of his inspired creatures, when you look at God's Creation, everything's at peace, all is well, all is beauty! As one poet said, "And only Man is vile." There is beautiful harmony in God's Creation, everything working perfectly in sync just the way it's supposed to, every creature having its particular duties, like the birds out there catching insects.

90. They zip and zoom‚ I never saw such acrobatic flying in my life! They soar and they flutter and they zoom right in between the narrow openings in places. It's amazing, the agility of some of these creatures! It's marvellous! I just love to sit and watch them!

91. I've got a motion picture going on all the time outside my window! Of course, I don't have time to watch it all the time, but at least while I'm eating. It literally gives me peace and a peaceful relaxed feeling to sit and look at God's Creation. My stomach doesn't get tied in knots, I don't get tense or nervous or under stress the way I sometimes used to, and I'm sure the Devil was trying to do me in. But there's nothing that relaxes me more and gives me more peace than to sit there while I'm eating and watch the beauties and the perfection and the peace and organisation and harmony of God's Creation! You may not be able to see God, but boy, you can sure see His evidence on every hand in His Creation, you can see His handiwork! TTL!—Psa.19:1; Rom.1:20.

"THEM THAT LOVE DEATH!"

92. So that was the original way God meant for the World to be, and why I'm always talking about it. In the Millennium we're going to get back to that kind of a life—the slow-moving life that I can still remember, think of that! It lasted so long and it was so recent that I can still remember it in my lifetime, when most people were farmers and lived on farms and only had animal transportation and wagons.

93. Life was beautifully peaceful and slow and Man did not die of stress and strain and all of its generated diseases, heart failure and all the rest of those things. There were lots of old people who lived a long time in those days out on the peaceful farms. They couldn't go fast enough to kill themselves!—Although they did have horse racing in those days. There were some speed demons even then, as the Bible says, "Them that love death!"—Pro.8:36.

94. That's what some people go to those car races for. They hope to see an accident, they hope to see somebody get killed, they love death! That's why they go to fights! That's why they like to watch violent sports! They just love to see somebody get injured or killed, they love the violence of the whole thing.

95. The Devil loves death too. He's the death-dealer who tries to get as many of God's creations killed as possible, to try to destroy Mankind. And the way he does it primarily is to get Man to destroy himself, and mostly by speed! And the way he has gotten them to speed the fastest is with fire!—And the worst kind of fire!

96. The worst kind of fire now, of course, is atomic fire! They haven't used it generally yet, but it was bad enough the few times they did! Men can never have these toys but what they decide to play with them sooner or later, and you have a picture of it in the Bible in the destruction of the Whore, a whole country burning to death!—Rev.18:8.

WORSHIPPERS OF THE GODS OF FIRE!

97. In that original Creation‚ in the Garden of Eden, there was no fire spoken of at all. I'm sure there were no storms and lightnings and thunders and things like that. That's not Thor bowling up there in Heaven as some religions had it‚ the Anglo–Saxons and the Norsemen and a lot of those Celts and whatnot‚ all those early religions that the Europeans had in which the gods of the heavens were demons. And one particular type of Barbarian‚ the German kind, worshipped Vulcan, a god of fire. When their kings were first converted to Christianity, one of them thought he could do both! He had an altar in one end of his place of worship dedicated to Jesus, and on the other end‚ just to make sure he kept on good terms with both sides, he had an altar dedicated to the god of fire, Vulcan!

98. Do you know what country that was in particular?—It was the country which invented the first and the best automobiles and was first to invent most of the modern types of fire engines‚ so to speak, and the one which still makes the finest, most popular upper-class automobiles in the World? Who makes'm? (Fam: Volkswagen?) Yes, they make Volkswagens also. But that's not their finest, that was originally intended to be the cheapest and the most common, the most popular.

99. That Volkswagen was inspired by Hitler for the common people! That's what it means. The Volkswagen is the "folks wagon," the common folks' wagon, designed so all Germans could have a car. Germany was recovering from the First World War and the car was necessary, it seemed, for progress, so Hitler insisted that somebody design and engineer a small, cheap little car that everybody could have. So they invented the "Bug‚" the original Volkswagen, in Germany.

100. But it was Germany which invented the first and best automobiles and makes some of the finest cars in the World, and what are they? (Fam: Mercedes, Porsche.)—Yes. (Fam: Studebaker?) No, leave Studebaker out of it. He was an American villain!—Ha! I don't think he was German, although he might have been! Ford was of German extraction. Some of those guys or their ancestors had gotten out of Germany and brought those chariots of fire to America.

101. But all those most famous automobiles, and the best automobiles even today, were engineered and built in Germany. And the first really workable internal combustion engines, meaning fire engines, were invented by the Germans! And that thought came to me just this morning, now isn't that amazing?—That here are all these Germans making chariots of fire! Then I remembered it was the Germans—the first "barbarians" they called them in Rome's day, the Goths, Visigoths and even some of those Norsemen, etc.—who worshipped the god of fire!—Vulcan and Thor, from which our day "Thursday" comes.

102. I think it's rather significant that the descendants of the worshippers of the gods of fire have become the ones who invented the internal combustion engine and who have built the best cars and the earliest cars, as well as the earliest planes and dirigibles, such as Graf Zeppelin and all of those amazing things.

103. When I was a kid, Germany was admired, almost worshipped! You couldn't truly finish your education in any field—whether it was music, art, mechanics, science or anything—unless you graduated in Germany. That was the ultimate! Science was at its ultimate in Germany in every field. No matter what it was, you hadn't really completed your education and really finalised it unless you finished it in Germany where all the smartest men were and the smartest doctors and scientists and the greatest musicians and the most glorious artists and all the rest!—Also the ones who have caused the World almost the most trouble, having started two World Wars!—Worshippers of the gods of fire!

104. They are also the ones who produced the World's worst religion—Communism! Karl Marx came from Germany. He was a German Jew who invented Communism. I'm sure the Devil invented it, but Marx was the one who was the first to promulgate it and preach it and write books on it that led half the World astray!—The children and the descendants of the worshippers of the god of fire!

105. Of course, we know who the god of fire really is!—The Devil, Satan! They were only worshipping some of his arch-demons and arch-devils who had those names, but he was their master. And it's through fire that they have been able to invent all of these machines to speed up the destruction of Mankind.

106. So I want to warn the Family who are again going mobile, that that engine that they're going to learn about, and if possible, at least make minor repairs and adjustments on, is an engine of fire‚ and it's dangerous! It's even dangerous to work on, you've got to be pretty brave to deal with adjustments while the engine is running and all that sort of thing, because it's an engine full of fire, that runs by fire!—All that power is produced by fire, and it was originally built by the descendants of the worshippers of the god of fire!

107. The Devil took the smartest people he could find—who in those days were the Germans—and inspired them to invent these weapons of fire, vehicles of fire, planes of fire, rockets of fire‚ all kinds of fire that he has inspired the invention of!—Undoubtedly inspired by the Devil through his gods of fire.

108. So I want to warn the Family to be careful and prayerful‚ not only when you're driving them‚ but also repairing them, even adjusting them, making tiny little adjustments that can make your engine run more smoothly and more powerfully. You're playing with fire!—At least you're working with fire.—And maybe that ought to be the title of this little talk: "The Chariots of Fire!—Are Inspired by the God of Fire!"—That's what it's all about!

THE BLESSING OF FIRE!—AND ITS MISUSE!

109. Well‚ PTL! We have a God of Fire also! "Our God is a consuming fire!"—Heb.12:29. But we live in a fiery era, an era in which people are driven by fire‚ transported by fire, heated by fire, fed by fire‚ and fire has a long and somewhat helpful history.

110. When Man was cast out of the Garden he had to earn his living from the soil, till the soil by the sweat of his face.—Gen.3:19. Preachers often say, "the sweat of his brow," but it's literally "the sweat of his face."—In fact, he sweat even more than his face! If you get to working with the soil, your whole body sweats!

111. I'm sure God gave Man fire to be a blessing to him. Now that he no longer had that nice tender fruit to eat that he didn't even have to cook, God gave Man fire to help him to eat some of that tough meat he was going to have to cook after the Flood.—Gen.9:2-3. You can't even eat some grains unless you soak'm and cook'm. We tried that when we were in our caravan with the hippies, but you couldn't eat those raw grains at all. In order to eat whole grains you had to soak them all night, as Dr. Koger taught us, then cook them in the morning. It's virtually impossible to eat even some of the simplest foods that Man ate at first and tilled from the soil without cooking.

112. We don't believe in Evolution, we don't think Man just learned these things himself, we believe he was taught by God and told how to grind the grain to make flour, to make bread of life, which became one of Man's first staples and first foods. And you cannot have bread without fire—baking—which is quite a scientific operation‚ in case you don't know!—Otherwise you're going to fall flat, at least your bread's going to fall flat, or your cake.

113. So the Lord gave Man fire to be a blessing, to help him cook his food and help keep him warm in those early days. Fire helped in a lot of ways, a lot of operations, things that you can think of without me telling you about them.

114. But then of course Man also misused fire and it became responsible for some of his worst efforts, such as war! They couldn't have even made most of those swords and spears without fire. And fire continues to be the greatest element of not only transportation, but warfare! Man could hardly make war without fire!

115. Well, they picture the early tribes of Man running around in little bear skins carrying clubs. The most common picture I remember as a lad was a picture of the caveman with a club over his shoulder dragging a woman home to his cave by the hairs of her head! They say if Man had not invented weapons, he would have just used what he did in the beginning—clubs, sticks, stones or bare fists.

116. But of course the worst of his weapons came through fire, and still do to this very day! The worst of all Man's weapons, the atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs, are as a result of his research into how to make fire!

FIXING YOUR CHARIOTS OF FIRE!

117. Since the Family has to have transportation today, and it's got to be System-type transportation, then we have to deal with these chariots of fire.—And we have to know how to not only drive them and operate them, but we have to know how to fix them!

118. Like most of our Family, in the early days of the Lord's Work we didn't have much money. We certainly didn't have money to pay some mechanic the kind of prices they charge for repairs nowadays!—Or even what they charged then! So thank God‚ as a young lad I learned how to repair them myself, minor adjustments at first. First I learned how to put air in tires. I remember Sara telling us that when her father first gave her a car he told her to go to the filling station and get water, oil and air. She didn't even know where the water or the oil was supposed to go, much less the air!—Ha! Maybe some of the rest of the Family are that dumb about cars too, I don't know!

119. But since you're going to have to deal with these fire monsters‚ these "chariots of fire," you're going to have to learn a little something about them!—At least in an emergency to know how to adjust the carburetor, clean the sparkplugs, adjust the idling, maybe even how to set the valves or the timing or clean and set the points of the distributor. There are a lot of little things you can do that will help your engine run much better and more powerfully and more smoothly.—Or in the cold climates, not run so rough when it's cold and have to wait till it gets warm before it even sounds like it's hitting on all four or six cylinders or whatever you've got!

120. They don't have many eight-cylinder engines any more, do they? I can even remember when they used to have 16 cylinders! I can remember an early Cadillac this preacher was showing off and bragging about. I went out there and looked at the engine and he was showing us how it had 16 cylinders! It really ran smoothly and it was really powerful!—But 16 cylinders could just multiply your problems.

121. The World has now gone wild mostly about just little compact four-cylinder engines. They've even got one-cylinder four–cycle engines‚ like a mower or a motorcycle or some of those‚ that can actually run on just one cylinder, but it performs exactly the same type of an operation.

STEAM ENGINES!

122. I could go on and tell you about how fire was used all the way down through history and how the first cars were run by steam. It took a little time to build a fire and get it heated up to where it produced steam, but they ran pretty good! I can remember a few Stanley Steamers when I was a kid. By that time they were kind of an ancient curiosity, but they still had'm!

123. And you know what? If big trouble comes, almost the best thing you could have would be a Stanley Steamer!—Because you can run it on coal or wood or whatever! It was a steam engine just like they have in trains‚ only in miniature. It had a boiler and a furnace under the boiler. You'd just start up your fire and get it good and hot until the water produced steam, and then it ran on steam pistons just like the train engines. But it was a little difficult to get up the steam and you couldn't go in and visit your girl for too long or the fire would go out, and then you'd have to build another fire!—Borrow some of her coal or wood to fire it up, besides the way you'd have gotten fired up!

POLLUTION & THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT!

124. Well, I hope you got the point that fire, instead of a blessing, has become a curse to Mankind and is destroying him rapidly‚ more rapidly all the time!—Not only through collisions and crashes, but through pollution of the atmosphere! These internal combustion gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles, even the planes which use kerosene, all of them are extreme pollutants!—Kerosene and diesel from the trucks being the worst polluters and causing such serious severe pollution of the atmosphere that science is now warning us that Man is not going to be able to survive much longer if he keeps on using them!

125. They are polluting the atmosphere to the extent that they not only have killer smog in places like Los Angeles, but they say even Mexico City has one of the worst polluted atmospheres in the World! I remember stepping off the plane in Los Angeles in the summertime when the pollution is at its worst, and that smog would hit me in the face and almost get me choking right off the bat!—Or I'd be driving my car and have to pull over and park because the pollution was so severe my eyes were burning and tears were streaming down my face!—And it hasn't gotten much better, in fact it's getting worse all over the World!

126. The chariots of fire are the most guilty pollutants of all! The scientists tell us if we don't clean up our act pretty soon—which they never will and they never can—we're going to smoke ourselves to death! And if the smoke and the pollution and the smog doesn't kill us, the "greenhouse effect" that it causes will!—The warming of the Earth's atmosphere from so much pollution, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, resulting in acid rain and all the rest! It's already killing us! They say that it won't take many years until the gases etc. will have such an effect and warm the Earth's atmosphere so much that it will cause death‚ destruction, disease, drought, even melting of the ice caps so that the ocean will rise!—And if it rises even a meter many coastal cities will be just wiped out!

127. Well, I don't think the Lord is going to let it all go on that long, at least not while we're here! But He may let the people who are left behind after the Rapture get a good dose of all that, and it sounds like those horrible plagues that fall on Mankind during the horrible Wrath of God will be some of the stuff the scientists are talking about! (See Rev.16.)

STATUS SYMBOLS & USING THE DEVIL'S INSTRUMENTS!

128. Mankind is bringing about his own destruction by worshipping the god of fire!—Something that practically all of civilisation does today! What do they worship the most?—Like the cowboy worshipped his horse and the kind of horse he had was a symbol of his status, what do people worship the most today? (Fam: Their cars!)—Right! It's more important to have a fancy car or a smart car or a good car to impress your status on other people wherever you go than even your house!

129. Only your neighbours see your house, but the whole general public sees your car! If you go to the market, the shoppers know what kind of a car you drive; when you go to the office, your boss knows what kind of a car you drive; the neighbours know what kind of a car you drive! So the car, the chariot of fire, has become the status symbol of the industrialised World, and the god of most of the fire-worshippers!

130. So watch out!—Not only watch out for 666, but watch out for the god of fire and his worshippers, which the World is full of today! We live in a dangerous age! And because of the System we live in today, in order to travel we are forced to use some of these instruments of fire, generally instruments of the Devil.

131. But for your encouragement, remember that there's nothing the Devil uses that the Lord can't turn to His use as well! There was one church I remember that didn't believe in having pianos or organs because the Devil used organs in movie theatres and pianos in bars and pubs, so they said it was an instrument of the Devil that shouldn't be found in the church! But praise God, many more sensible churches have found that they can take these "instruments of the Devil" and use them for the glory of God! In fact, originally a lot of them weren't instruments of the Devil.

132. You can read in the Life of Grandpa series about the composers that all the great composers of the days when things were beautiful were men of God! (See "In the Hall of the Mountain King!" LOG, Parts 20-22.) There were only a few fiendish ones, like Wagner, the one who Hitler worshipped, who wrote music of the Devil with the sounds of war. They say the greatest inspiration that Hitler had was listening to Wagner, and look what it drove him to! … [Hitler] was obviously inspired of the Devil, because his means of dealing with [the ACs] was not the Lord's plan.

133. The Lord's plan was to let the [ACs] have it—not the way he was letting them have it—but let them have the World!—As the agents and worshippers of Satan who have sold themselves to him and who are now running the World, to bring it literally to its destruction! The ACs and the gods of fire and their instruments of fire are going to bring this World to its end!—But the sooner the better, amen? So may the Lord speed it up and "even so come quickly, Lord Jesus!"—Rev.22:20. Amen! PTL! As we pray the prayer which He taught us to pray: (Prays the Lord's Prayer) PTL! Hallelujah! TYJ!

134. Thank God‚ pretty soon we won't have to know anything about mechanics, but right now we need to know! I think that was a good little message for the Family. You know me‚ I have to cover everything from Genesis to Revelation! I pretty well covered Revelation already‚ so now I have to go back to fire! So, drive safely, prayerfully, and tune up‚ adjust and repair securely! Amen? God bless you all!