HomeARC ML 0126
"LOOKING UNTO JESUS!"--MO November 12, 1971 NO.126--LTA
(Read Now Heb.12:1-13) (Read also 1Cor.8:9-13; Gal.2:4; 1:20; 3:1-4; 4:9; 5:1,7,13,16,18,22,23; 2Pet.2:19-20; Rom.12-14--All three chapters!)
MY DEAR CHILDREN: GREETINGS IN JESUS' PRECIOUS NAME! THIS LETTER WON'T DO YOU ANY GOOD--UNLESS YOU READ IT, or hear it read! And it must be read with these Scriptures preceding it in a Leadership Session, unitedly, together, and in prayer, in a Leadership Meeting--not just privately or individually, for it is a Call to General Repentance for much of our leadership across the nation, if not around the world!--And if you don't read it, you are the guilty ones it speaks of!
1. WE HAVE DISCOVERED SEVERAL COLONIES LATELY WHO SEEM TO THINK THEY CAN GET ALONG WITHOUT GOD! They seem to think that all they need to take care of them is their Provisioners (formerly known as Procurers), Prayer Letters, and New Disciples! They didn't need Leadership Meetings, Daily prayer meetings, or even MO Letters! They didn't need to counsel together, pray together, or seek the will of God together! In one of our largest Colonies, a former mother Colony, the leaders were all going each their own way and doing their own thing--what was right in his own eyes!
2. IN A FEW SHORT WEEKS, under changing and weak leadership, they had gotten into the same condition that it took the Early Church about two hundred years to get into! In fact, in a few short weeks they had strayed so far from the Lord that they had become virtually like the churches that they themselves have condemned: Each going his own way most of the time, not desperately seeking the Lord or His Will, and depending on the arm of flesh to save them and keep them going instead of the power of God!
3. THEY'VE BEEN DOING EXACTLY WHAT THE OTHER CHURCHES HAVE BEEN DOING now for hundreds of years: they thought they had such a nice little organisation, such a good plan and method, and such cute little schemes and it was all so Scriptural that now they could do without the Lord! They had become like the little girl said about the kitten when she heard it purring: "It's gone to sleep and left its engine running!"--Just like the churches of today! The only difference was that they've been doing it fulltime, every day, and not just on Sunday, which is even worse!
4. IT TOOK THE CHURCHES YEARS TO FIGURE OUT WAYS OF GETTING ALONG WITHOUT GOD--a lot of organisation, a lot of education, a lot of training, a lot of building, a lot of experience, a lot of money, and a tremendous number of people, and a lot of political power and influence, so they could lean on man, instead of the Lord! It takes quite a bit of doing of your own works in your own flesh to figure out how to get along without God, and they've finally learned how to survive without Him!--But entirely and completely out of His Will!
5. THEY WIST NOT EVEN THAT THE SPIRIT HATH DEPARTED FROM THEM, LIKE SAUL, and that an evil spirit from the Lord now inhabits them and torments them, they're so sound asleep! Like this former Mother Colony, they didn't even know anything was wrong, until the Lord began to withdraw His provision and protection and let them suffer some attacks of the Enemy, not necessarily for their own righteousness sake but because of their own stupidity, independent, self confidence, and spiritual lethargy!
6. NOT ALL PERSECUTION IS THE ENEMY'S FAULT! SOME OF IT IS YOUR OWN FAULT, for your own stupid mistakes, your own lack of prayer, your own lack of unity, and your own lack of dependence on God, in spite of all that we have warned you from our first tape from Europe, "Let God Lead!" to our recent lengthy admonition, "Stop, Look, and Listen!" and many others, some still thought they could get along without God, without desperate united prayer together and heeding God's voice!
7. WHEN THE CATS ARE AWAY THE MICE WILL PLAY! That's one way you tell the difference between cats and mice, who the real cool cats are, the genuine leaders with a serious concern for the sheep and God's Work, or the mere mice who goof off as soon as nobody's looking!--Who either don't attend the meetings that are held or don't care if meetings aren't called, who couldn't care less when the last MO Letter was read, or the last united prayer meeting was held, or the last serious discussion of needs and problems! They've just gone to sleep and left the engine running ! And you know what happens when you do that?--The engine soon runs out of steam, out of fuel, the power of God, and the oil of His Spirit and overheats from friction, slows and stops!
8. OR IT BECOMES SO DISORGANISED, SO INCOHERENT AND UNCOORDINATED WITHOUT A GOOD DRIVER and without proper maintenance that it just goes to pieces or completely crashes to a near total standstill, with no direction, no guidance, no plan, no purpose, no awareness, no repairs, no power, no lubrication, no attention, and pretty soon no useful motion, fit only for God's junk pile! What a hell of a mess--just a junker, only in the way encumbering the ground!
9. SO WHAT DO YOU DO? Since it's nearly totally lost its usefulness and its purpose, you try to at least salvage any good parts that are left, junk the rest, and find a new car! If it's gone so long and so far and gotten into such a state of disrepair that the maintenance costs more than it's worth, the smart thing is to junk it and send the parts somewhere else where they can be used to better advantage, or sell them for what you can get out of them, and use those funds to either pay the overdue gas and repair bills or for payment on a new one! So that's what we've done.
10. MAYBE WE CAN ADD THIS TO JOEL'S LESSON ON THE AUTOMOBILE! THE BIGGER THEY COME THE HARDER THEY FALL! I remember when I was a kid we used to go riding around in this huge, swanky, Pierce Arrow--the American Rolls Royce of its day, because it was old, second hand, and the cheapest thing we could buy, because the smart buyers wouldn't buy it--it cost too much to run and maintain! It just wasn't worth it! It could no longer deliver the goods for what it cost to keep it, but it still looked nice and had a big reputation and rode around on its name!
11. BUT THIS FORMER MOTHER COLONY DIDN'T EVEN LOOK NICE ANY MORE! IT WAS A MESS! One of its house was so dirty, insanitary, and inadequate even one of our own people was shocked at its condition and the conditions in which its inhabitants were trying to survive! Sometimes you can't even afford something that's free! When I was a small boy standing on the pier admiring a millionaire's luxury yacht, I exclaimed to the owner, "Wow! I'd like to have a yacht like this !" But he wisely replied, "You couldn't even afford it if I gave it to you!"--Like our Pierce-Arrow!
12. WE CERTAINLY CAN'T AFFORD TO BE CAUGHT LIVING UNDER SUCH CONDITIONS and be a justifiable reproach upon the Cause of Christ! If the Lord doesn't provide a fairly decent place for you to live, it must not be His will for you to be there! People can understand the necessity of your living in a cave in the midst of the wilderness without water or sanitary facilities where you have to dig a hole in the back yard for your dung, but not in the middle of a big city! It's no wonder the authorities were shocked, and condemned it!
13. AND IN SPITE OF MY WARNINGS about floors, this major Colony not only had monstrously heavy machinery on a weak old burned out wooden floor, but was also holding its meeting and dancing together on the same floor with the machinery! So when the inspector saw it, he was afraid they wouldn't get out of there soon enough before the floor caved in! It's one thing to take what the Lord gives, but it's another thing to have enough faith to ask Him to give you something good enough to operate in!
14. REMINDS ME OF THE GUY I ONCE KNEW who was so desperate for a car that he said, "Lord, please give me a car! I gotta have a car, Lord--just any old car!" So that's exactly what he got--exactly what he asked for--a real clunker! You get what you ask for, and what you have faith for! God takes you exactly at your word! So this Colony hasn't been able to find an adequate home yet, so it's having to be disbanded for lack of leadership, obedience, and faith!
15. WHEREAS GOD HAS PROVIDED REMARKABLY AMPLE FACILITIES FOR OTHER COLONIES who lost their former homes, and some Colonies which never even had a home before because of the faith and obedience and good, strong, faithful leadership who didn't forget to pray--together desperately! They've gotten whole campgrounds out in the nice beautiful country amidst God's wonderful Creation, nearly free of charge, or for very low rental, because of their obedience and faith! But this poor big old Colony, although they've been looking for months, hasn't even been able to find a single place in the whole state, so they're having to move out!
16. WELL, MAYBE IT WAS THE WILL OF GOD AND THEY WERE THROUGH THERE, BUT THEIR LACK OF STRONG LEADERSHIP, PRAYERFULNESS, FAITH, AND OBEDIENCE CERTAINLY DIDN'T HELP! HOW'S YOUR COLONY DOING?
17. THIS SAME COLONY COULDN'T EVEN REMEMBER WHEN IT HAD READ THE LAST MO LETTER together or had had a prayer meeting together, or even a leadership meeting of any kind, it had been so many weeks! I'll grant you they were labouring under a difficult situation with scattered and inadequate facilities and poor leadership, but this is no excuse for prayerlessness, disobedience and unconcern! Somebody could have stood up and tried to jolt the conscience of the community, but nobody did--not one--not even a little one--because nobody really cared!
18. "THE GOOD SHEPHERD CARETH FOR THE SHEEP, BUT THE HIRELING FLEETH", caring only for himself! He's not concerned about the condition of the sheep or the threat of the wolves or the lack of pastorage, or the shortage of water! He's content as long as he has his own! Sometimes the hireling is not even conscious of the danger, due to his lack of watchfulness, and prayerlessness and his own lack of concern about the Shepherd's instructions. This Colony was no getting it's leadership together for either MO Letters or prayer! They only ate together--that's all! No wonder they fell apart! The family that prays together stays together! This one didn't!
19. NOW LET ME TELL YOU SOME-THING! The huge governments, corporations, colleges, and systems of this world spend years and years educating developing, organising, training, and preparing their personnel for leadership and highly technical jobs, because they have to depend on themselves and not the Lord! But the Lord is able to take a group out of all walks of life and levels of education, or no education, with little or no training or experience and inadequate leadership, and throw them together from everywhere and make a well organised team out of them, if they will just seek and listen to. His leadership and obey, since they don't know anything themselves and have never done it before!
20. IT'S LIKE YOU'D TAKE 2000 UNSKILLED LABOURERS and throw them all into an automobile factory suddenly, and say: "Make cars!" Without training and experience this would be impossible, of course, especially without guidance or instructions! It would be nothing but chaos, like the Colony mentioned, every man with his own ideas, going his own way and doing his own thing, and you'd probably end up with one of those crazy contraptions like Rube Goldberg's cartoons! It might even be a very elaborate, intricate, and complicated machine, but without coordination, purpose, or guidance, it would get nowhere, like this Colony with no prayer nor MO Letters!
21. BUT IF YOU WOULD TELL THESE FACTORY WORKERS: "Now, see here! You don't know anything and you never made a car before, but if you'll just listen to the instructions of our Central Computer on your little radio sets through your earphones, each one of you will know exactly what to do and when and how to do it! Just listen and obey instructions!"--And they might actually be able to make a car with a little time, patience, and experience!--For the Computer knows how!
22. BUT IF THE WORKERS DECIDED THEY DIDN'T NEED the Computer, they'd rather figure it out for themselves, so they turned off their radios and laid aside their headsets, because they were so busy and didn't want to be bothered with having to listen, they would soon have nothing but confusion, frustration, and failure--like this Colony! So beware!
23. HERE WE ARE A BUNCH OF YOUNG KIDS THROWN TOGETHER with no previous training in our field, yet we're the Lord's Army, with this huge job thrown in our laps! Only God can synchronise us into anything at all effective, and unless the leadership meets together everyday for desperate prayer, they'll fall on their faces, because they're not getting God's instructions! They're not listening to the Lord, or their Leader, or even to each other! They're bound to fail!
24. THESE PEOPLE WHO LOOK ONLY TO NEW DISCIPLES, BETTER PRAYER LETTERS, OR MORE PROVISIONING to meet their needs instead of looking to the Lord are going to fall flat on their faces! If you think you can get by leaning entirely on the arm of flesh instead of the Lord, you're going to fail! You'll get just like the churches: "Let's work harder, get more sheep, think up new schemes of raising money, so we can do without the Lord! The we won't have to stay in His Will or listen or obey! We can get along on our own without God! We`ll depend on man instead of the Lord!" Fred Judas went this route, and King Saul, and look what happened to them! You better get your eyes off man and back on God, or you're going to fail! But Jesus never fails! Look to Jesus!
25. GOD USUALLY USES PEOPLE TO HELP US, but if you start getting your eyes on man, the gift and the giver instead of the One who inspires him to give--the Lord, your givers may soon lose their inspiration, and you'll be doomed to disappointment! God wants you to look to him, and ask Him, and follow Him, and obey Him! Then He'll bless your means of supply! But if you lean mostly on the means and the men instead of the Maker, you'll soon be in a mess!
26. GOD SAYS, "I THE LORD THY GOD AM JEALOUS GOD, AND WILL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME!" He doesn't want you getting your eyes on anything else more than Him, looking more to man than his Maker! And God doesn't have to have anything to begin on! Some of you say, "Now, we can't go to town because the conditions there are not right, the Provisioning is no good, or it's too dangerous!" But if God says "Go!" and it's His Will, you'd better go, no matter what, and He'll take care of you! Don't look at the waves! Keep your eyes on Jesus! Obey Him!
27. BUT TO DO THIS, YOU HAVE TO KEEP IN TOUCH WITH HIM, KEEP YOUR SPIRITUAL RADIO ON, and follow His directions! He's not limited by many or by few! He doesn't have to have anything to begin on! He made the world out of nothing--Pretty good old world, isn't it? He hung it on nothing--Hangs pretty good, doesn't it? And he can make something out of nothing--even you, if you'll listen, trust, and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey! Are you doing both? The one cannot go without the other! You can't obey without trusting, and you can't trust without obeying! It's two way street! And you've got to listen to do both!
28. AND AS FAR AS MO LETTERS ARE CONCERNED, YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ THEM or listen to them, if you're not interested in the score or winning! You can let them stack up on your desk and put them aside until you have time, and you`ll never have time! You have to make time!--to both pray and to read MO Letters! You've got to make time to listen! You've got to set a definite time every day for your leadership prayer meetings and conferences and MO Letters!
29. WHEN WE WROTE THE LETTER ON "SCHEDULES", we didn't think we had to tell you that, of course, you should spend some time every day witnessing, if possible, and some time reading MO Letters! We did mention the evening leadership classes at which time MO Letters were supposed to be read, whenever there was one! But the Colony we were talking about which is now nearly defunct was more interested in Bible Prophecy than the current prophecies of the Lord's Leader!
30. BUT LET ME TELL YOU RIGHT NOW, IF YOU DON'T READ THOSE MO LETTERS TOGETHER with the people for whom they're addressed, on the day they arrive, you're going to be sorry! You're going to be like the guy who dropped his pencil during an Army crash course in Mathematics, and missed a whole year of Calculus!--Or the battlefield general who's still going by last year's Battle Plan, or even last month's or last week's--or even last month's or last week's--or even yesterdays!
31. THE LORD INSPIRES ME TO WRITE YOU, much of the time, what you need at the moment--and if you don't use it today, like God's manna, it may be no good for tomorrow! If you let them stack up on your desk instead of sharing them with the shepherds and/or the sheep, you might as well forget it, and forget being a Colony Leader, too, and even forget being a Colony! You'll wind up like the one we've been talking about, because that's what they did!
32. WHEN WE GET REPORTS FROM YOU SAYING HOW MUCH YOU APPRECIATE THE MO LETTERS, BUT GIVING NO SPECIFIC NAMES OR REACTIONS, WE KNOW YOU'RE NOT READING THEM, as some of you have confessed! Or when we see these constant questions cropping up in your reports which have already been dealt with in the MO Letters, again we know you're not reading them, not studying them, not absorbing them, not paying any attention to them, and certainly not following their advice!
33. HERE AGAIN, THE SMALL COLONIES ALWAYS DO BEST, appreciate the letters the most, talk the most about them and how they helped them, and are so thankful for them, because the small Colonies know they don't know anything, and know they need leadership, guidance, counsel, help, and advice! So they listen, and try to obey, and God blesses them! But when they get big and powerful, they think they know everything and don't have to be told anything and can get along without me or the Lord! They know it all!--And fall flat on their faces & disappear! How about you?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family}
