KEYWORDS: aura, car, door, lord, hotel

Last American Nightmare?, The

David Berg

The Aura Jones Dream

—MOApril 11, 1975DO No.381

"THE FINAL GETAWAY"

1. I JUST HAD ANOTHER SCARY DREAM ABOUT THE U.S! It was about a rich woman like our old friend Aura Jones. I don't know if it was she or not, because this woman was younger and lots prettier and in her early 50s—like Aura Jones would have been in her early 50s—very pretty and sweet, with blonde hair—and very rich. She apparently owned this big hotel complex with apartments and bungalows. It was at a big resort of some kind by the water somewhere like Florida—I don't know where for sure, but Aura Jones was there. I wouldn't swear it was Aura Jones, but she sure reminded me of her, only she was a lot younger. Aura Jones would by this time be about 90 if she were still living. But this woman looked rather young and pretty still.

2. IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL RESORT AND THE SUN WAS SHINING on all these lovely cottages or villas and bungalows and this big hotel apartment house. I went into the lobby of the hotel and Aura came out to greet us and seemed to be very happy to see us and told us to go right on up to the banquet and showed us how to operate the elevator door. I remember that elevator really impressed me. The doors were all beautiful glass or plastic, very unusual and modern and they had this dial on the wall beside the door with a pointer.

3. AURA SAID, "THIS IS SOMETHING NEW: Now you just open the door, and before you close it you set the pointer on the floor you're going to go to. Then you get in and let the door close." Instead of all these buttons to different floors inside the elevator there was just this one button and you just pressed it and went to the floor that you had set the dial at on the outside wall by the door. It was a very modern system apparently. Unlike just pressing a call button which would only say which way you are going to go, up or down, you actually dialed the exact floor you wanted to go to. I suppose that somehow regulated the floors where the elevator stopped, etc. Anyway, it was something very new and different.

4. SO WE GOT IN THE ELEVATOR AND WENT UP AND GOT OUT AT THIS BIG BANQUET HALL of the hotel. A big banquet was going on, and it was either her son or a relative that she had there who was escorting us and showing us around. He seated us at this big long table next to two men sitting on my left. I only remember the two of them because of what happened. This young fellow, our escort, was sitting across from us, and we got to conversing as you do at a dinner about odds and ends, and this young fellow was relating some story about some past incident that happened at the Soul Clinic years ago before his time. He was discussing it mostly with these two fellows sitting on my left. They were doing most of the talking and apparently knew each other and I was sort of the odd man out, just an unknown stranger there.

5. BUT SUDDENLY THE YOUNG MAN TURNED TO ME like it suddenly dawned on him that I knew something about the incident‚ and he said to me in front of these two guys—he did it inadvertently like he never thought of it causing any trouble at all—he said‚ "Well you were there then." It seemed like he was talking about TSC in the old days when it was a Soul Clinic School for missionaries. He said "You surely must remember and know all about what happened." The suddenly he stopped as though he realised he'd said something he shouldn't say, and he looked a little startled.

6. BUT THE TWO GUYS NEXT TO ME REALLY OPENED THEIR EYES and turned toward me, and the guy right beside me said, "Why then you must be...!"—as he reached over and put his arm around me in a kind of hypocritical friendly gesture as businessmen do when they want to act like they're all "hail-fellow-well-met." "Why," he said, "then you must be the old boy himself!"—Meaning you know who—me!—And it was all because of the slip of the lip this young fellow had made who apparently knew he wasn't supposed to tell who I was. The businessman was saying it in a kind of a laughing jocular teasing way‚ but like he didn't really intend it to be so funny. It was more like‚

7. "AHA‚ WE'VE FOUND YOU AT LAST!" He was laughing like the Devil would: —"Aha‚ at last we've found you!" And I said "Oh no, no!—you must be mistaken!"—and I tried to evade the whole thing. I don't like to lie so I just said, "You've got the wrong fellow." But they started making it kind of unpleasant.

8. SO I SAID, "EXCUSE ME A MINUTE," and left the table and hurried to the elevator‚ and I and the people with me quickly went down and jumped into a car Aura had given us to use, a nice big beautiful old-fashioned car, a big limousine, but probably about 20 years old‚ a real antique. I remember looking at the back seat of the car at this typewriter she'd also given us which we'd picked up at one of the bungalows, a real good modern office typewriter. I don't know what that had to do with it, but it had filing cases and all kinds of stuff with it, so I thought, "Well, we don't have time to worry about that right now! We'll just have to jump into the car and go!"

9. I REMEMBER HOPING WE'D GET OUT OF THERE BEFORE THOSE GUYS CAME—And sure enough, as I backed out of the hotel parking lot, here they came out and stood on the hotel steps looking like they were trying to decide what to do. About that time Aura climbed in and decided she wanted to go with us, and she had a very pretty daughter who looked a lot like Honey who wanted to go along too.—And then there was this cute little blonde girl who wanted to jump into the front seat and sit beside me, about four or five years old, who seemed to be—well, I had the impression she belonged to me. But I was really anxious and on edge because these people were all delaying us. They didn't realise why we were hurrying to get away. So Aura said,

10. "OH, NOW I WANT TO SHOW YOU THE REST OF THE PLACE: You must not go before we show you the other buildings!" And I thought, "My Lord, I'm trying to get away from here as fast as I can, and she's still showing me around!" It's amazing how clear these things can be so we rolled off in this stately old chariot and I was very glad to get away from those guys who were still standing there talking about us, and I had an idea they were trying to decide what to do. We drove down toward the water through two rows of lovely cottages and gardens to show me what a pretty place she had now.

11. YOU KNOW WHAT AURA LOOKED LIKE?—AN ANGEL! It must be what Aura looks like in the spirit, because when I went up to the banquet she just vanished! That must be what she looks like now cause she didn't look old and withered anymore.—And you know what I think that place is?—The property she still owns down on Key Largo!—And this must be some time in the future, because this little girl seemed to belong to us. But Aura wanted to show us what she'd done with the property. They were having a big Christian banquet and that's why we were talking about those things like old TSC.—And those guys were like a couple of big burly preachers!

12. YOU KNOW WHO AURA JONES WAS—she was this wealthy 70-year–old woman who was our partner down on Key Largo‚ a wealthy woman at the Soul Clinic for a while. Then she came to Miami to live and work with us for a while and then went to Cuba as a missionary. I took my little trailer down to her while she was there in Cuba to live in. She finally sold it to a lawyer who took it up into the mountains for Fidel Castro to live in before his revolution! While she was in Cuba she wrote her book, New Life for Grandmother, her life story telling how it was still possible for people to live for the Lord even when they were old.

13. I WAS TRYING TO BE PATIENT AND HUMOUR HER WHILE SHE WAS SHOWING US AROUND so then we drove down to the water's edge after looking at the lovely little villas and their gardens, and there were people swimming in the water. The beach was like the one there in Key Largo, too, not much of a beach, just a little one. I remember while we were sitting there watching the beach scene some guy ran past us and dove in. I thought, "That was kind of a risky thing to do when you don't know what's in the water!"

14. ALL OF SUDDEN a big piece of something whistled over our heads and landed in the water, and somebody spoke up, I think it was Aura, and said, "Pieces of that bomb are still falling!" My impression was that some missile had exploded way up in the sky, and the pieces are still falling all over. So I said, "Boy‚ it sure is dangerous here!" I think that was what inspired me to tell Aura, "Well‚ we've just got to go now!"

15. SO WE TURNED AROUND AND WENT BACK UP THE ROAD which led out of the property and right past the front door of the hotel again. In the meantime while we'd been down there looking around with Aura the banquet had dismissed and quite a crowd of these men had gathered around outside in the middle of the street and there was quite a commotion going on‚ loud talking, etc.—And apparently it was about us!

16. SO WHEN THEY SAW THE CAR COMING THEY ALL MOVED OUT INTO THE STREET TRYING TO BLOCK THE ROAD and I saw right away they were going to try to stop us! Maybe it's a warning of some kind‚ but it was such a strange place and must be so far in the future! but sure enough, that's what they were up to! So I had to slow down the car because they were all out in front of it, But I kept the car moving slowly along blowing my horn for them to get out of the way.

17 BUT YOU KNOW HOW THE MOB DOES—IT WAS JUST LIKE A LYNCH MOB! They were all yelling and screaming at us. But as I had to go real slow, pushing my way through them, this one guy yanked open the door and grabbed hold of my arm trying to pull me out. There was another guy with him. They were the same two guys who had been sitting at the table with us, and they were leading the mob I'd just gotten through the crowd because they thought they had me now, but as I saw my way was clear in front

18. I JAMMED MY FOOT TO THE FLOOR ON THE FLOOR ON THE ACCELERATOR AND THE OLD CAR LEAPT FORWARD! It still had a little life in it, thank God, and it threw those two guys clear to the ground that were trying to stop me and pull me out, and we roared off with my door still hanging open—and I woke up! But I got away, thank the Lord! It was like Aura was all shocked and amazed about what was going on: "What in the world is all this about?" she asked.—But that's when I woke up, just as I roared off and the sudden jerk of the car shook those guys loose from my arm and threw them to the ground.

19. NOW WHAT IN THE WORLD WOULD A DREAM LIKE THAT BE ABOUT? Now Lord Jesus‚ if it has any meaning for now, please show us. I'll tell you what my first impression was when I woke up about 7 o'clock this morning and I was pretty upset: I immediately thought about my enemies, of course, and thought, "Now what is one of the things they'd like to do to me—identify me!" This is what Judas did when he betrayed Christ. Judas led them to Jesus' secret hideaway and identified Him!

20. THE EFFECT IT HAD ON ME WAS TO SORT OF WARN ME TO BE MORE CAUTIOUS ABOUT OUR OWN SECURITY: For one thing‚ people by very casual accidental remarks could unintentionally say something that would reveal my identity or hideaway, like this young friend did at the dinner table. This is why it's never wise even to let our friends know where we live or permit them to see us. People had better be careful of their little casual remarks that might let them cat out of the bag—or make this ol' cat have to leave the bag!

21. EVEN OUR OWN FRIENDS AND FAMILY CAN ENDANGER OUR SECURITY who don't intend to do so and could thereby reveal our whereabouts which could greatly endanger us. Therefore we should be extra cautious now that we don't any of us make the same mistake: What caused the whole thing was just a little unintentional remark at the dinner table.

22. THAT OLD CAR COULD SYMBOLISE THE REVOLUTION and what happened to the men was what the Lord always does to our enemies! Thank the Lord! They harass us, but He never lets them get us, praise the Lord!—Are you extra cautious in your remarks about your leadership and their security? Do you do your best to protect us?

23. AND SINCE THIS WAS ANOTHER AMERICAN NIGHTMARE maybe it's another warning for you to get out and escape before it's too late! Does God have to pull you out by the hand as He did Lot from Sodom?—Or do I have to accelerate the Revolution again and yank you out by threatening to leave you behind as mere Associates if you don't go now before it's too late!—Why don't you obey Christ and go now into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature?—As we are doing! Please join us! We need your help!