HomeARC ML 0697
SEEK FIRST!--By Father David May 21, 1978 MO--DO NO.697
--"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God!" (Mat.6:33).
© June 1978 by Family of Love, CP 748, 001000 Roma, Italia.
1. THERE ARE SOME ENCOURAGING STATS, THANK THE LORD, the most encouraging of which are the FF stats, and they are absolutely phenomenal! You're also now doing a better job on your own self support, the Homes are beginning to increase again, the population is going up a little and things are looking brighter financially.
2. BUT IN GENERAL THEY LOOK MUCH WORSE SPIRITUALLY. The fact that the lit distribution is still on the way down is not good at all, and looks very bed. What did God call us to do as our main job in the first place? Our main job is to "preach the Gospel" in all the world.
3. TO TRY TO RESCUE YOU FROM YOUR OWN FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES we have written several Letters on the "7 Supporters" and how to "Make it pay" and so on. But apparently you thought, "Well, that must be our new thing--our main job now is to support ourselves. So, let's forget about litnessing. We've found that some other things support us better.
4. "PHOOEY ON LITNESSING!" But you're going to find out that God is not going to bless you if you put everything else before preaching the Gospel, and you neglect getting out the Word.
5. GOD HAS PROMISED TO BLESS YOU IF YOU GET OUT THE WORD, and the peak that we hit last October proves it! Even though you had some tyrants and some were overworked, God was really blessing.
6. BUT NOW IF YOU ARE GOING TO NEGLECT PUBLISHING THE WORD, having fallen about 55 to 60% in your distribution, you are going to find out you are going to be in deep trouble with the Lord. I'm talking not about mere dollars--and cents or stats and numbers--I'm talking about the blessing of God and your job.
7. THERE'S NOTHING WE HAVE THAT'S MORE IMPORTANT TO DO THAN TO "PUBLISH GLAD TIDINGS," to publish the Word of the Lord, right? And all of our other activities should just be supporters for the publishing of the Word, never to be put above the publishing of the Word.
8. PERHAPS WE MADE IT TOO HARD ON YOU THROUGH THE LIT LAWS and it may have discouraged some of you from even printing the lit at all, much less distributing it. So I'm willing to revise, I'm willing to make exceptions and be more lenient.
9. I GOT VERY ANGRY BECAUSE OF THE HORRIBLE MISTREATMENT OF THE WORDS BY SOME. But I think the solution to one of the problems at least--that of our GP lit distribution on the streets--is going to be the comicbooks, simple little 8-page comicbooks.
10. THESE NEW COMICBOOKS ARE SO GOOD and so palatable I think they will go over like mad on the streets. I am frankly in favour for the general public of going to nothing but comicbooks, nothing!
11. BUT YOU KIDS DON'T HAVE TO HAVE COMICBOOKS, really. It would be nice and we are doing a few for you, but if you're not interested enough in reading the whole counsel of God, then you're not very interested.
12. BUT THE GENERAL PUBLIC, THEY'RE NOT EVEN BABES YET, so you have to pre-chew and assimilate it for them and then spit it into their mouth. You've got to try to get it to them somehow, in some way that they will take it, and these comicbooks really pack a wallop!
13. I'M PLEASED WITH NEARLY EVERY SINGLE COMIC! They're extremely effective, very readable and almost irresistible! I think they will help our GP street distribution.
14. YOU MAY HAVE DISCOVERED THAT THESE OTHER SIX SUPPORTERS are so fruitful and profitable that you figure the main idea is to try to earn a living, and you're forgetting what you joined the army for.
15. LIKE THAT SOLDIER WHO WAS FIXING THE WATCHES: He found out it was more profitable to fix watches than it was to fight battles. So he was very surprised to be notified that he had to leave his watch business that was a real money-maker and go out and fight the battle!
16. AND WHAT'S THE BATTLE?--GETTING THE WORD OUT! I can understand your lit dropping off extremely for awhile because of the loss of the tyrants, and your rebellion and your just plain sitting down and loafing for a change--you took a vacation.
17. BUT NOW I HAVE EXHORTED YOU TO GET BACK TO WORK and do more, and I was really expecting the stats, this nosedive of the lit distribution, to hit bottom last month, and start making an upturn, especially after all my appeals.
18. WELL, OUR APPEALS TO YOU APPARENTLY TOUCHED YOUR HEARTS FINANCIALLY, but you didn't get the point of the importance of getting back to work litnessing. You figured, "Well, I'm getting back to work, I'm provisioning, I'm FFing, I'm doing this, I'm doing that.
19. "I'M GOING BACK TO WORK AND I'M SENDING DAD THIS MONEY, and therefore I'm doing what he asked me to do.--And we sent in more money than we did last time, and so I'm fulfilling his request. "
20. BUT YOU HAVE GOTTEN THE IDEA THAT NOW LITNESSING IS NOT REALLY IMPORTANT, and all these other things are more important, and for you to go FFing and provisioning and all the rest, these are more important, and you may have found out some places they're even more profitable. That's the way we survived in the early days.
21. FIVE YEARS WE SURVIVED WITHOUT SELLING LIT, and we found the other supporters were very profitable and very fruitful and preserved us. They and the Lord made provision for us.
22. BUT WE DIDN'T FAIL TO DISTRIBUTE LIT, MILLIONS OF WARNING TRACTS!--And that's why the Lord blessed us. I don't want you to fail the Lord.
23. BUT YOU ARE FAILING GOD IN YOUR CONSTANT DECLINE IN LIT DISTRIBUTION, 57% decline in your litnessing!--And the Lord is not going to be pleased with that. You've been good to us and you've tried to do even better as far as giving is concerned, and quite obviously you have done better.
24. BUT YOU'RE STILL ONLY TITHING THE LIT INCOME, NOT YOUR ENTIRE INCOME as you should be. About the only way we've managed to pull through is by some special individual gifts from some of you. GBY! Some people have given more which has made up for others' lack. But it's obvious that you had a total income which should have been tithed but which total tithe we never received.
25. YOU HAVE ALSO FALLEN WAY DOWN ON WINNING SOULS, and God is not going to bless that either. Your soul-winning has dropped off 80%! Now you know that God is not going to bless that!--And yet that was about our biggest stat in our early days, right? We were winning souls like mad right and left.
26. WE'VE HAD A 57% DROP IN LITNESSING within about the last six months, and an 80% drop in soul-winning within about the last 8 or 10 months! If it keeps up at that rate it's going to come to where we're not winning any souls!
27. WELL, I WANT TO TELL YOU RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE IN A DANGEROUS POSITION! You may be provisioning and FFing great guns, and FFing is of course a great way of witnessing, and God is momentarily blessing you with funds because at least you're working, you've found that "He that shall not work shall not eat." (2Th.3:10.)
28. NOW IT'S MY JOB TO WARN YOU about your disappointing the Lord in not preaching enough Gospel and winning enough souls. That was our main emphasis in all our beginning five years: To distribute the Word by the millions.
29. IF YOU'RE GOING TO THINK THAT NOW ALL THERE IS TO DO IS PROVISION and go around playing in cafes and bars and support yourself, I must have given you the wrong impression, because that is not the main idea.
30. IF WE OBEY THE LORD AND WE GET OUT THE WORD AND WE WIN SOULS, THEN NO MATTER WHAT, THE LORD WILL TAKE CARE OF US. But if we are just going to think about, "Well, now let's see, how are we going to support ourselves? Dad issued this '7 Supporters', and here we are--now we can at least support ourselves. So now we don't even have to worry about litnessing anymore or soul-winning or anything else as long as we support ourselves."
31. SHEEP ARE PRETTY DUMB, and they just follow the latest instructions. "Oh, '7 Supporters', that's all we're supposed to do--support ourselves!" And you are apparently doing a good job getting out and really working at it, because your total world income has been pretty good, although you haven't been sharing enough with us.
32. IF YOU WANT US TO DROP EVERY OTHER PUBLICATION and just keep nothing but the MO Letters, we'll do it, if that's what we have to do to survive. We'll drop MO Ed., Family Care, FN, the whole works except the MO letters and the comics, because those we've got to keep going.
33. THESE OTHER THINGS SEEM LIKE NECESSITIES, but in a way they are things we need but can actually live without if we have to in order to survive. So I want you to think about how serious it is and what we're going to have to do if you don't do better in your tithing than you've been doing.
34. YOU MUST TITHE YOUR TOTAL INCOME--not just lit income--especially at the rate your lit is declining! Now a lot of you may think, "Oh Well, that's okay, I don't care, as long as I get my MO Letters."
35. BUT IF YOU DON'T "PUBLISH GLAD TIDINGS" AND GET THEM OUT AS IN "THE BIRTHDAY WARNING," GOD'S JUDGMENTS ARE GOING TO FALL!--He's not going to bless your provisioning, He's not going to bless your FFing, He's not going bless anything else if you neglect the Word of God and the preaching of the Gospel, the winning of souls and tithing a full 10% on your total income.
36. IN THOSE THREE AREAS YOU ARE REALLY FAILING. The most serious situation is not the financial or your failing to tithe your full 10% of your total income, but the most serious situation is that you are not preaching enough Gospel and winning enough souls.
37. IN FFing YOU ARE DOING GREAT, and in provisioning you may and should be witnessing, and in going around passing the hat in the bars and so on, there is certainly an amount of witnessing--all these on a certain scale.
38. BUT THERE'S NO POINT IN MY BEING A PROPHET IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PUBLISH THE WORD THAT GOD GIVES, and the warnings that He gives. Now lately you have not been failing me, you have been good to us and giving all you thought was necessary, at least you thought if you gave a little more than the 10% of your lit income, that that was quite generous.
39. YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVEN'T BEEN FAILING YOUR FF FISH, and apparently you're doing good provisioning, you can't do that very well unless you're faithful to your donors in witnessing and feeding them.
40. BUT YOU ARE FALLING GOD AND THE PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT PUBLISHING ENOUGH WORD AND NOT WINNING ENOUGH SOULS. So you're really in a pretty sad state, although I presume you don't even know it or even realise it, as I've found most sheep are pretty dumb. They usually don't know what's wrong or what they're doing. That's why you need a Shepherd.
41. YOU'RE NOW DOING BETTER TAKING CARE OF YOURSELVES and provisioning and a lost of other things including small-scale witnessing along this line, although it's very little compared to what you used to do. I think it's marvellous that you won 5,000 souls through FFing, but you used to win 100,000 souls a month through preaching the Gospel! And although your stats are marvellous in some areas and coming up in others,
42. YOUR STATS IN PREACHING THE WORD AND WINNING SOULS ARE STILL SLIDING AND ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE! Terrible! They are frightening! Because it looks like you decided to give up litnessing and soul-winning entirely, for the stats are still going down.
43. I THOUGHT SURELY AFTER MY APPEALS YOU WOULD START UP AGAIN, and that you understood that I meant for you to get out and work on the Word and not only just the other six supporters, but it included Litnessing, Number One!--Not just for support, but to obey the Lord! If you have to earn your support by the other six and pass out the lit free, that's what you ought to do in order to get out the Word.
44. IF YOU HAVE TO WIN YOUR SUPPORT THROUGH THE OTHER SIX AND LITNESS TOO and yet spend less time supporting yourselves and more time witnessing in order to win souls, that's what you've got to do, or you're failing God, you're failing me, and worst of all you're failing the world of lost souls!
45. SO PRAISE THE LORD! God bless you all for being patient with me, and we must be patient with you. But we have got to tell you that you're in a dangerous position, and I'll tell you what could happen:
46. IF YOU DO NOT PREACH THE WORD, if Jeremiah had been unfaithful, God would have shut up and wouldn't have told him any more, He'd just stop talking! Which means there wouldn't be any more MO Letters, because God would be so displeased with you that He'd stop speaking!
47. I CAN'T SPEAK WITHOUT HEARING THE WORD FROM THE LORD, except for a little teaching. You've got the idea apparently, that as long you support yourselves and as long as you get your MO Letters, that's the main thing, that's all you have to do--and of course do some FFing and some provisioning and a little cafe musical witnessing and write some letters home to get some money from Mom and Dad.
48. "THAT'S WHAT DAD TOLD US TO DO, and that's really all we need to do, and we'll still get our MO Letters, we'll all be happy. We don't even have to litness anymore, we don't have to win souls anymore. That's all we have to do anymore, just support ourselves."
49. BUT GOD IS NOT GOING TO BLESS, then He is going to cut His Word off, and then if you don't obey He is going to cut you off!
50. YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO GET OUT AND PREACH THE GOSPEL, and one of the best ways is with the lit and the message that God has given to His Prophet, even if you have to pass lit out free! And you are going to have to take time to try to win souls, or God is going to be very displeased.
51. HE WON'T BLESS ANY OTHER AREA IF YOU NEGLECT THE NUMBER ONE JOB WE HAVE TO DO, PREACH THE WORD, AND NUMBER TWO, TRY TO WIN THOSE TO WHOM WE PREACH IT. In a way, winning souls is really God's job, but you have to be the channel and the instrument. And if you neglect those two and put them in a lower place than all your other activities, then God won't bless.
52. IN FACT HE WILL CURSE: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God and I will have no other gods before Me!" (Ex.20:3,5.) God wants your love first of all, He wants you to put Him first, and His Word, and His job of winning souls, first of all. And all the rest can follow along afterward, and that's fine.
53. BUT IF YOU TRY TO PUT YOUR SUPPORT FIRST AND LEAVE PREACHING THE WORD AND WINNING SOULS LAST, GOD WILL NOT BLESS IT. In fact, He will curse it, and He will stop speaking through me because you failed to listen! Getting my letters and reading them and being so happy to get MO Letters is one thing.
54. BUT IF YOU'RE NOT GETTING OUT THERE AND PASSING THE WORD ON TO OTHERS, THAT'S WHAT'S SO SERIOUS ABOUT IT. When I read those lit and soul stats I began to see some of the things that are the matter. I was not totally discouraged or disheartened by any means, but I was just a little displeased. I think I was more than anything displeased to see how you're failing God.
55. AND OF COURSE YOU'RE FAILING GOD FINANCIALLY TOO: He said, "Will a man rob God? But ye say, Wherein have we robbed Thee? In tithes and offerings!" (Mal.3:8) So that's another third great failure on your part. You are only giving the tithe of your litnessing and not the tithe of your total income, which was required in the Scriptures.
56. YOUR TOTAL TITHE IS ONLY THE THIRD AND THE LAST SHORTCOMING, BUT IT'S EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. Because if you are not faithful to God in tithing your total income, God will not bless you financially no matter how hard you try in every one of the "7 Supporters."
57. YOU ARE GOD'S CHILDREN IN THIS FAMILY OF LOVE, AND IT IS YOUR OBLIGATION TO SUPPORT GOD'S WORK as they did the temple with 10% of their total income under the Old Testament system, which is somewhat our form of government. So that's number three.
58. HOW ARE YOU FAILING GOD? Number one, you're not preaching the Word as you should, you let down on your litnessing. Number two, you're not winning souls as you should, you let down on witnessing. Number three, you're not giving as you should. You apparently didn't even understand you're supposed to tithe your total income.
59. SO I MUST TELL YOU AND WARN YOU that if you don't do better on these things, God is not going to bless you. And having warned you and told you, if you still don't obey, God is not going to speak anymore to you, there'll be no more MO Letters, do you understand?
60. SO I HOPE YOUR DEAR CHILDREN WILL UNDERSTAND, and I'm sure you will, because you love me and you love the Lord, and I do believe you really love souls. You just got so busy supporting yourselves you almost forgot to litness, witness and win souls!--And you were in a financial mess, so I don't much blame you.
61. BUT NOW IT'S TIME TO GET BACK TO WORK LITNESSING, WITNESSING AND WINNING SOULS!--Amen? Let's try to strike a balance, a happy medium with temperance and moderation in all things. (1Co.9:25; 2Pe.1:6; Ph.4:5.) Amen? "This ye ought to have done, but not to have left the other undone" (Mt.23:23). Amen? GBY! ILY!
62. I'M EXPECTING TO SEE BETTER LIT, WIT AND WIN STATS of you next time.--Amen? You've done it before so I know you can do it again!--Amen? GBY! Let's go! Don't for get to support yourselves, but keep litnessing, witnessing and winning too!--Amen?
63. YOUR FF STATS ARE PHENOMENAL AND YOUR NATIONALISATION IS SHOCKING!--Over 5,000 souls won in FFing alone!--And nearly twice as many nationals as U.S.A.'s! It's almost unbelievable! Hallelujah!--At last we've really gone international!--One World! PTL! One Family! "One Wife"!--God's Wife and Family of Love!--Hallelujah! Praise God!
64. I'M SO HAPPY!--Aren't you? Wow! Whatta Family! You're the greatest! Some thought we were finished when they looked at some of those stats, but "we haven't even begun to fight yet!"
65. ALREADY THE POP AND HOME STATS ARE ON THE WAY BACK UP--good solid realities and not phoney paper catacombers and multiple one-location Homes! Now let's get these lit, wit, win and tithe stats up to where they ought to be!--Amen? I expect it!
66. I'VE JUST SET YOU FREE WITH "PROCLAIM LIBERTY!"--So now you've no excuse! You do it your way--or God's way!--And let's see what happens!--Will you now do more for Love than Law? I believe you will!
67. NO ONE WILL BE DENIED THE WORD ANYMORE for your inability to keep some laws! The salvation of the Word is now for all!--But now we expect you to do even better in the areas you can.--Keep trying! Never give up! Stick!
68. WE KNOW IN SOME CLOSED COUNTRIES SOME OF THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE, so keep up that FFing and other witnessing. Where there's a will there's a way!--With God's help. "Nothing is impossible with God, and all things are possible to him that believeth!" (Lk.1:37; Mk.9:23.) Hallelujah!--Amen?--Amen!
69. GBY! WLY SO MUCH! WE CAN NEVER THANK YOU ENOUGH for all your love and prayers that have brought me back to life, and your sacrificial love gifts that continue to make our ministry to you possible! GBY!--And I know He does and will if you'll just keep on obeying and loving Him and souls! In Jesus' name, amen! "SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM!"
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
