HomeARC ML 0928
TITHING & THE FN!--By Father David DFO928 26 July 1980
--Or Weaning the Baby!--100%ers, 10%ers, 110%ers--or Nothings?
1. I WAS WORRYING & PRAYING ABOUT IT LAST NIGHT WHEN A SWEET OLD SONG CAME BACK TO ME: I don't know if I could even remember it all, but it kept coming to me, it goes something like this: (Sings:)
"Like the sound of sweetest music
Coming down from Heaven Above,
Comes that wondrous Name, that Heaven-given Name,
Comes the sweetest Name, that Name I love!"
TYJ! TYL! TYL! (Breaks, weeps--tongues:
2. "LIKE THE MUSIC OF LOVE THAT I HAVE GIVEN TO DAVID, & THE WORDS THAT I HAVE GIVEN TO THY FATHER.") (Continues to sing:)
"Jesus, Jesus, Name I love!--
Wounded, needy hearts to love!--
Name all other names above,
Jesus, Name I love!"
(Cries.) I can hardly sing it!--Isn't that pretty? (Maria: The Lord says He gives "songs in the night"!) (Job 35:10) That was such an encouragement, thank the Lord!
3. I WAS THINKING HOW CONFUSING THINGS CAN BE & HOW PEOPLE CAN GET THINGS SO CONFUSED & how the devil really tries to confuse & complicate things! (See "Oplexicon!" No.261.) I was reading a report about the different levels of giving for the Magazine, & I had a sneaking feeling that the Enemy was bringing up these questions & problems deliberately to show how complicated it could all get, like a chess player who's playing a game will literally try to pose problems & situations & questions which don't always necessarily exist but could.
4. PERHAPS THESE EXCEPTIONS DO OCCUR ONCE IN AWHILE, so they were justifiable questions regarding the tithes that we require from the Family for them to receive the Magazine. But it was getting into entirely too complicated situations that we should not go into, splitting hairs over the differences in categories according to amounts, etc.
5. IT WAS JUST GETTING ENTIRELY TOO COMPLICATED! I just couldn't understand it. Either they're not very clear or they're too deep for me! I actually read it over & over & still couldn't quite grasp what they were driving at. (Maria: Maybe if it's that complicated we'd better simplify it.) Yes, that's what I thought. It seems we were being too lenient on some people & too hard on others.
6. IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO ENFORCE SUCH A FINANCIAL POLICY, IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE! I tried to liberalise it because of some of their appeals & questions, as I felt sorry for these people & tried to make some allowances for those who don't give the full amount that they should etc., but it has made things very, very complicated on these financial requirements. It's like the Enemy knew he was posing problems that were insoluble, like a challenge: "How are you going to answer this one, & how are you going to solve that one with your new system?--It's not going to solve it!"
7. SO IT WAS SUCH A DIFFICULT SITUATION I FINALLY JUST GAVE UP, & I thought to myself, "I don't even know what they're talking about!" Really! I couldn't even get it, except that the idea was that this isn't fair to this one & that isn't fair to that one, so what are you going to do about it?--Sort of like complaints.
8. THE QUESTIONS WERE POSED ABOUT OUR MAGAZINE RATES & PERCENTAGES OF TITHING & GIFTS & all, & problems regarding the various classes & stages of Disciples & Friends & kinds of Magazines to be sent to different people for this or that kind of giving or tithing etc. Finally this report really made me a little angry because it was like throwing out challenges & posing problems that they knew were rather insoluble.
9. IT MADE ME FEEL LIKE CASTING AWAY THE WHOLE PLAN of trying to make any kind of differentiation at all & to go back to the strict tither's rule, period!--Regardless of the amount or whatever!
10. THE PROBLEM THEY WERE POSING IS THAT IT SEEMS UNFAIR to give people who give a generous donation only a DFO Mag just because it is not their full tithe, when some little people who give only a few dollars but still claim it's their tithe get DO Magazines!
11. POSSIBLY THEY'RE TRYING TO SAVE THE IRFERS, whom I've almost been trying to weed out by making it pretty hard on them in several recent Letters, because God hates compromisers & half-hearted people, & that's what some are!
12. IRFING WAS A GOOD PROGRAM WHILE IT LASTED, to try to reclaim some of our backsliders & old friends & so on. But once they've been given the opportunity to repent & come back & the door's been opened & they've been given a chance for a year or more now, almost two years since we wrote the "Dear Friend or Foe" Letter, we expect to get some results, not just IRFers who are merely half-hearted tasters & curious.
13. WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO RECRUIT THE ONES WHO WERE SINCERE BUT PERHAPS OFFENDED or disabled little sheep who had been driven away by cruel shepherds of the Chain of the past & trying to love them back into the fold. But if it turns out that they're still goats & just curious or critical & just want to get the latest gossip & they're not really whole-hearted,
14. IF THEY DON'T REALLY INTEND TO TITHE & won't & don't, I'm not even interested in sending them the strictly Family News even with no MO Letters! Because I hardly even think they deserve anything if they're only merely tasters & curious & just looking in & only want to know the news! So it made me feel so angry!
15. ONE PROBLEM WAS THAT THE SUPPOSEDLY POOR WERE NOT ABLE TO GIVE VERY MUCH but were giving all they could, like the widow's mite, even all their tithe, & still if they couldn't quite meet the tithers' minimum, they weren't able to get the full Magazine.
16. YET IT'S ALMOST DANGEROUS TO GIVE DO MAGAZINES FOR TOO LOW A SUM for fear that some people are just faking it who could even be enemies! On the other hand, it would be a shame to cut off the true children of God who need to get the whole counsel of God just because their income is so low that they aren't able to meet the TRFer's minimum. (Maria: Don't you think the Lord would supply that?) Well, it seems to me it should be if they're busy & faithful. But what some are appealing for is those who can't make it, & the implication is that we are sort of squeezing the poor & being too good to the rich.
17. (MARIA: BUT YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS?--I'VE HEARD OF SEVERAL CASES where the poor little almost widow is all out & wants to serve the Lord but can't quite pay all her tithe, we relent & she gets the Magazine. Then her husband, who's a real rotter, drinks, smokes & hates the Family, reads the Magazine & has all the info, all the inside information, everything he needs to become as bad an enemy as he wants to be!
18. (SO HE AN ENEMY IS GETTING IT ANYWAY THROUGH HER because we're having so much pity on her because he won't help support her or pay for the Mag. She's a poor little almost widow but she lives with him & so he gets the Magazine too, so that's not very good.
19. (THAT HAPPENS QUITE OFTEN, not only because we're lenient & we've cut down the minimum for her, but in some cases the husband & wife are divided even though they live in the same house, one's an enemy & one's a friend, so how can you stop that? If one sends in their tithe but lives with a real enemy, how are you going to stop the enemy from getting it too?) That's the problem! That's just another one of those many problems regarding it.
20. THERE ARE SO MANY OF THESE PROBLEMS & WE'VE MADE SO MANY EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULES, that if we continue doing this there would be a thousand & one different kinds of problems & exceptions & differences & so on!--And so as I thought about it, I thought,
21. "WELL, NOW ONLY GOD KNOWS & ONLY GOD HAS THE ANSWERS!" When the Lord was using a system similar to ours in the Bible, He just made a flat requirement of 10% regardless of who it was, widows or orphans or anybody, whoever it was, there was just a flat 10% requirement for everybody! This was fair for everybody, because no matter how much they earned or how little they got, they all had to tithe 10%!
22. GOD EXPECTED THEM TO BE ABLE TO GIVE AT LEAST 10%, & He promised to more than reward them & bless them for it no matter how small it was. (Maria: Did He have a minimum?) He didn't have a minimum, no--just the 10% (Maria: But the reason we have a minimum is to keep the enemies out.) But at the same time we possibly are being unjust & causing the poor to suffer & are depriving them of the Word just because we don't want the enemies to get it.
23. MAYBE GOD WANTS THE ENEMY TO GET THE MESSAGE! (Maria: Now I can agree with that. But if that's going to make us water down the Word that we would otherwise give to the full whole-hearters, then I hope we don't have to do that.)
24. I HAVE TO SINCERELY FACE GOD & ASK THE LORD WHY HE ALLOWS THINGS TO HAPPEN, BECAUSE HE'S IN CONTROL. Under pressure from others, have I compromised?--That's the question that came to me. Have I compromised the tithing standard, God's 10% rule, because of their constantly posing these difficult problems & complicated situations in over-sympathising with the rich or the poor with the suggestions that this isn't fair for this one & that's not fair for that one & so on? It just finally came to me as I was praying, that we have made it too complicated & we've been bending over backwards trying to please everybody, like "The Man, the Boy & the Donkey" story. (See No.604.)
25. THERE WERE SO MANY PROBLEMS POSED BY THE OFFICES regarding the various recipients of the Magazines, & what Magazines they are entitled to receive & what Magazines they aren't & who deserves what & who doesn't. As I prayed about it, their problems were so complicated that I couldn't even understand the problem much less have any answers!
26. SO IT JUST CAME TO ME THAT WE WERE SIMPLY MAKING EVERYTHING TOO COMPLICATED & confused because we were not sticking to the simple rule of just straight 10% tithe, no matter how much or who or anybody or what! What they were saying more or less was that here are these poor rich people who give much more than the minimum, yet it's not their full tithe, therefore shouldn't they really deserve a little more? Why should they get only as much as an IRFer who only gives the minimum?
27. I'D ALREADY REDUCED THE MINIMUM FOR SOME HARDSHIP EXCEPTIONS TO VIRTUALLY ROCK-BOTTOM! I told WIM if anybody even sent in as much as $5, send them at least one DFO Magazine. But I may shock you by saying this, I have a notion now to raise the IRFers' minimum!
28. BECAUSE FRANKLY, IF THEY HAVE MORE, IF THEIR TITHE WOULD BE MORE, yet they're not willing to give it, I feel the Lord would feel that they hardly deserve anything if they're just giving a little minimum simply to get a little Family News without really being willing to sacrifice & give & support God's Work with a full tithe, no matter how large! So that's the way I felt after reading all the problems that I couldn't even understand, much less have the answers!
29. THE ONLY SOLUTION AS I PRAYED ABOUT IT SIMPLY WAS TO GO BACK TO GOD'S ORIGINAL TITHING PLAN, IT'S JUST AS SIMPLE AS THAT: JUST A STRAIGHT 10% TITHE FOR EVERYBODY, NO MATTER HOW SMALL OR HOW GREAT! Tithe is a great leveler! They'll all get the DO magazines if they tithe, even if they are enemies pretending to tithe! There's no way we have of knowing. Only God knows!
30. I DON'T DOUBT THAT IN THE TEMPLE DAYS THEY PROBABLY HAD PLENTY OF ENEMIES who got in & had to be accepted as worshippers because they brought what they claimed was their tithe, & only God knew the difference. They could have been spies trying to infiltrate & steal secrets from the Temple, but as long as they claimed it was their tithe, who was going to check their books & make sure? Who was to know?
31. I'VE NEVER HEARD OR READ IN THE BIBLE THAT THEY HAD ANY CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS WHO AUDITED THEIR MEMBERS' BOOKS TO MAKE SURE THEY WERE TITHING! But I have heard of some modern priests who went to the banks to check their parishioners' actual bank accounts & income to make sure that it was really 10% that they were tithing!
32. THAT OBVIOUSLY HAS BEEN A PROBLEM OF THE CHURCH FOR GENERATIONS, to know whether people who claim to be tithing are really tithing or not.--Like Ananias & Sapphira--they claimed to be giving all but weren't giving all. I'm sure there were plenty of people who claimed to be tithing that there was some doubt about whether that was really their genuine tithe or not.
33. HOW ARE WE GOING TO KNOW?--ARE WE GOING TO AUDIT THEIR BOOKS? All we have is their own statement that their income is so much & that this is their tithe. All we can do is trust their word, that they're not liars, that they're not trying to cheat God, & that that is their actual tithe. What else can we do? We can't go through their bank accounts, we can't check their books, we're not an auditing company, we're not the government! Well, we are their government in a way, the Kingdom of God.
34. BUT ONLY GOD KNOWS WHETHER THEY'RE LIARS, CHEATERS & ROBBERS OF GOD OR NOT! So. (Maria: I mean, it might even help some of these people & enemies or whatever--they might even get converted!) Yes, when Jesus preached publicly, the Scribes & the Pharisees were always there, & their spies & lawyers & soldiers & government officials, to hear whatever He had to say. Of course, when he spoke privately to His Disciples only, He did take them apart, aside from the company & the multitude.
35. WE HAVE A PROBLEM HERE BECAUSE WE'RE NOT FACE-TO-FACE WITH ALL OUR DISCIPLES & we don't know them all as well as He did. So when we have anything truly private to say, maybe we'll just have to send out a circular only to our World Service Units & people we do know well. I'd say they're like our innermost circle of disciples, like Jesus' 12.
36. THEN HE HAD THE 70, which was like our Family missionaries Worldwide. Then of course, there were lots of other friends & followers & disciples as well, like our whole Family. But whenever He published things to the general public, the enemies of course were there to hear & listen to try to catch Him.
37. BUT ANYHOW, THAT'S WHAT CAME TO ME when I was considering the problems they had posed about the differences in splitting hairs between the various grades of Disciples, like how can we just give DFO Magazines to people who give more than tithers but just as IRFers, when we give DO's to any little widow who tithes her mite, & that just didn't seem fair to some. And in a way, I agreed with them, & it did seem unfair. But on the other hand,
38. THAT WAS PROBABLY WHAT JESUS MEANT WHEN HE SAW THE WIDOW CAST IN HER MITE. (Mk.12:41-44.) Although the smallest of all coins, only part of a penny, it was all she had! He was saying that she was giving more than all those rich Scribes & Pharisees who were casting in great sums, which probably weren't even all their tithe, but they were casting these larger gifts into the treasury with great show, pomp & ceremony & blowing of trumpets! They actually blew trumpets to let everyone know & see what huge sums they were giving to the temple!
39. AT THE SAME TIME THEY COULD HAVE BEEN CHEATING & ROBBING GOD IF IT WASN'T EVEN THEIR FULL TITHE, even though much more than the poor widow's mite! Though she only gave a mite, it was even more than her tithe, it was all she had! She gave 100%, everything she had!--And the Lord honoured her for it! Whereas these who were passing great sums & jewels & great wealth from their coffers into the treasury of the temple, were probably robbers, cheaters, liars, & swindlers of God because they weren't actually giving their full tithe!
40. SO THE LORD GAVE HER THE CREDIT & NOT THEM, by indicating that she had given more than they, because she had given all she had, 100%--even more than it seemed she should!--"Even all her living"!
41. WHEN I WAS A POOR BIBLE COLLEGE STUDENT living in a trailer with a wife & four kids on $25 a week, I told my wife that we couldn't afford to tithe, that it was all our living, that we had to have all the money to live on, to eat on, pay our rent etc.--it was our living! But she said,
42. "WELL, LET'S ASK THE LORD FOR A SCRIPTURE". We often used to "cut the Scriptures" for an answer, just open the Bible & read the first verse our eyes fell on. So we did, & we opened the Bible to that Scripture on the widow's mite where it said she cast in "all her living".
43. MY CONTENTION WAS, "IT'S OUR LIVING SO WE CAN'T GIVE IT, IT'S NOT TITHE! If we give any of this, it's our living. We can't afford to give even 10% of our living! It's what we need to eat on, live on, pay our rent on & our bills! It's impossible!" I said. But we opened the Scripture to that verse,
44. "SHE CAST IN ALL THAT SHE HAD, EVEN ALL HER LIVING"! Well, how could I buck that? I mean there was nothing left to argue! I couldn't argue with that! I'd been saying we couldn't cast in 1/10th of our living, & here was the widow casting in all of her living, all she had! So we tithed our $2.50 that next Sunday to the Church, which was the only place we knew to tithe, & right away Monday morning when I showed up at Bible class, the Professor said, "Here's something someone gave us to give to you".--It was a $20 bill!--Nearly 10 times as much as we'd tithed! (Maria: Wow, isn't that beautiful!)
45. SO THE LORD BEGAN TO BOUNTIFULLY BLESS US more than ever before just for giving 1/10th of what I considered was even our living that I thought we couldn't afford to give because we had to live on it! (Maria: Yes, the Lord really blesses our kids!) God blesses the tithers who really give sincerely & sacrificially, & they will never be able to outgive God if they are faithful.
46. I AM FIRMLY CONVINCED THAT IF YOU TITHE FAITHFULLY in faith & obedience because of faith in God's Word, that He will take care of you no matter what, & more than reward you for it! Just be sure it's not just because we ask you to or just because you're forced to to get the Magazine, yet always complaining & murmuring about it; but tithing gladly, for "the Lord loveth a cheerful giver" (2Co.9:7), tithing cheerfully, obediently, & by faith in God's Word.
47. I AM ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED THAT GOD WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU & MORE THAN RETURN YOUR TITHE & more than bless you for it & take care of you in many ways that you cannot take care of yourselves! We've had many testimonies along this line, we receive them all the time from many of the Family, that even when they thought they couldn't tithe, they started tithing anyway no matter what little bit it was, & God more than multiplied it & more than abundantly restored it!
48. THERE'S HIS OWN PROMISE ON IT!--MALACHI 3:10, AS PLAIN AS ANYTHING!: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in Mine house, & prove Me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of Heaven, & pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it!" ("Meat" = Magazines!)
49. IN OTHER WORDS, EVEN IF YOU ONLY GIVE YOUR LITTLE DRIBBLE OF ONLY 10% of your total income, only 10% of all your living, He will more than reward & repay & bless you so much you won't even be able to hold it all! He promised that! It's the Word of God! God said it!--Is it true or not? If you therefore tithe in faith & believe it's God's Will & you're doing it in obedience by faith, I know God will more than return it & reward you.
50. JESUS PROMISED EVEN A HUNDREDFOLD IF YOU GIVE ALL! THINK OF IT! ONE HUNDREDFOLD! It may not all be in dollars & cents, it may be in protection or maybe saving you from accidents & sicknesses that would have cost you a hundred times more! God can save you money in more ways than one & reward you not just financially.
51. YOU CAN'T COUNT IT ALL IN DOLLARS & CENTS, but in protection & in health & strength & in fruitfulness of service & all sorts of thing! So anyhow, it just came to me that we're making it all too complicated with all these split-hair differentiations between who gets what Mags for how much! It's just getting too complicated.
52. FROM NOW ON WE SEND THE DO MAGAZINES TO WHOEVER TRULY TITHES, regardless of the abundance or the smallness of your tithe, we send it to you despite the fact that maybe enemies will get it too. Some will get it anyway somehow. The Devil is a great opponent of the Word, so I'm sure he'll want to get copies to try to make fun of it.
53. THE ENEMY WAS ALWAYS TAKING CHRIST'S WORDS & TWISTING THEM & trying to catch Him in them & trying to accuse Him with the things that He said. It says clearly in the Bible that the Jews were listening to what He had to say to find something "wherewith they might accuse Him". (Lk.11:54.)--Trying to catch Him with His words & accuse Him with His own words. Some of these very accusations were made at His final so-called trials, both government & religious trials. They twisted His Words & said that He was saying they shouldn't pay taxes & was against the government & blah, blah!
54. SO, THE ENEMIES ARE GOING TO GET IT SOMEHOW ANYHOW, however they get it. Who knows?--As you said, maybe it'll do them some good, maybe it'll reach their hearts somehow, like this ex-witch John Todd who got a little seed of the Truth sown way back there when he was a child in Sunday School & years later it came to fruition when he saw that he was in the wrong religion & was looking for someplace to go & he got converted. (See his story in a later mag.)
55. A LITTLE TINY SPECK OF TRUTH, LIKE A GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED SOWN IN HIS HEART by the Book of Revelation way back there when he was a child in the few times that he attended Sunday School, that little tiny speck of Truth revealed to him the falsehood that he was in when he came to a crossroads point of decision so many years later. How marvellous that little tiny seed of the Word that was sown in his heart as a child! It was the thing which finally delivered him, that little bit of God's Truth showed him how horrible was the falsehood that he had gotten into & how diabolical, demonic, hellish & fiendish was Witchcraft.
56. SO IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO KEEP OUR DO MAGAZINES FROM FALLING INTO THE HANDS OF OUR ENEMIES. Even our own people, top leaders, have defected & turned over all kinds of inside information to our enemies! So, what difference does it make? How can we trust even the tithers, those who are supposed to be trustworthy, when even leaders have defected & turned over all kinds of information to our enemies?
57. SO I DON'T THINK IT'S POSSIBLE TO WEED OUT OUR ENEMIES JUST BY HIKING MONETARY MINIMUMS! It certainly is not fair to the poor, genuine disciples who are actually very poor, especially in the poor countries of the World who are unable to meet any kind of a minimum except God's 10%!
58. (MARIA: THERE HAVE BEEN A LOT OF QUESTIONS AFTER THAT LETTER WHERE WE SAID YOU OUGHT TO TITHE YOUR PROVISIONMENTS TOO & things, that are not just cash income. There's been a lot of sincere questions on that, not just murmurs. There have been a few murmurs, but the sincere have said, "Well, most of our income comes in provisions or welfare or material gifts, not cash, so how are we going to tithe it?" For example, some of them said,
59. ("WELL LISTEN, WE GOT $10,000 WORTH OF PROVISIONED MATERIALS, NOT CASH, SO HOW CAN WE TITHE IT? We don't even have a thousand dollars cash!") Well, how about giving a part of those materials to some World Service Unit or some needy deserving VSs or WS missionaries? (Maria: Well, they did give some of it to needy Homes & different people in the Family, a lot of it.) It's possible that if it was something worthwhile & needed by a WS Unit, we'd be willing to pay for the shipping costs to ship it to some WS Units--we've got'm 'round the World! (Maria: Wow, that's a good idea!)
60. (MARIA: OTHERS SAY, "WELL, WE GET PROVISIONS & CASH, BUT WE GET SUCH A SMALL AMOUNT OF CASH IT WOULD TAKE IT ALL TO PAY OUR TITHE!") In that case they ought to be able to have enough to live on from provisions & use their little bit of cash to pay their tithe. (Maria: From their cash, right? They ask for you to make that decision, they really ask that a lot.) Well, maybe this little policy talk is going to clear that up.
61. ANYHOW, MINUTE QUESTIONS HAVE ARISEN WHERE WE SEEM TO BE STRAINING AT GNATS & SWALLOWING WHOLE CAMELS trying to make distinctions between givers & tithers & how much they're giving & how much they deserve in the way of the Word & Magazines, until it's become so confusing & complicated that I can't even understand the problems much less the answers! So in prayer I was seriously considering it. I wanted to turn it over to you fellows for you fellows to look at it & discuss it.
62. BUT THE ANSWER THAT CAME TO ME IS THAT WE WERE JUST GETTING TOO COMPLICATED & TOO CONFUSED, & THE LORD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF CONFUSION. He likes things very simple. You have to be like a little child, & even a little child can understand 10%, or one out of ten fingers or apples or whatever! That was His own simple plan in a government situation such as we have in the Family, which is in some ways similar to the Old Testament organisation of His Earthly Kingdom.
63. THE NEW TESTAMENT PLAN, OF COURSE, WAS 100%! Under His Law of Love, you are to give your all, yourself & everything you've got! This is what we preached to begin with, to "forsake all"--bring it all with you but forsake it all to the Family--houses & lands & family & brothers & sisters, husband or wife, mother & father, everything for the Lord, & He would more than repay! We started on that basis & it still works, & I still believe in it!
64. THE TITHE IS GOD'S SECOND BEST, IT'S REVERTING TO THE OLD TESTAMENT SYSTEM. It's an easy way out for those who are not willing to give all. So the tither's already getting by with a lot less than God expects of him as a real N.T. disciple! A tither is already getting by with giving much less than 100%! (Maria: Yes, others are giving their whole lives!)
65. THE PICTURE I HAVE IS OF PEOPLE BACK IN THE STATES WHO ARE WORKING AT ORDINARY SYSTEM JOBS & NOT GIVING 100% BUT ONLY 10%. (Maria: Yes, right!) Those people are getting by cheap! They're not giving their whole lives & everything in His fulltime Service! They're not serving the Lord fulltime, they're not giving Him their fulltime in His Service. They're not all working strictly for the Lord.
66. THEY ARE WORKING FOR MONEY, THE GOD MAMMON, & JESUS SAID YOU CAN'T SERVE BOTH, AT LEAST NOT FULLTIME! (Mt.6:24.) They're giving most of their time, strength & attention & lives to Mammon, for money & material things, jobs, homes, families, things! Let's face it! They are certainly not giving 100% to the Lord, which is the New Testament plan.
67. SO IF YOU'RE ONLY TITHING, GIVING ONLY 10% TO GET THE FULL COUNSEL OF GOD, YOU'RE GETTING BY CHEAP! (Maria:--And some don't even obey the Letters!) You're getting by for less than you should. There are no doubt many of you backsliders who are not any longer all-out for the Lord, no longer giving all to God & serving fulltime, who are nevertheless at least willing to pay 10% to at least get the Word & the news & the counsel of God & want to be warned of what's happening.
68. YOU BELIEVE IN THE TRUTH & KNOW I'M A PROPHET OF GOD & THAT GOD SPEAKS THROUGH ME & you want to get the Word & operate on it selfishly as far as being warned of what's happening & what to do about it, so you want to get the latest news from God as well as the family.
69. WHEREAS THERE ARE OTHERS WHO ARE STILL IN FULLTIME SERVICE SERVING HIM FULLTIME, giving their fulltime & all that they have to serving the Lord on various mission fields throughout the World, even the Home field, & devoting their fulltime & energies & everything to preaching the Gospel, witnessing, litnessing & not serving Mammon, not serving in a System job & not working for the Devil, but strictly for the Lord, & still tithing whatever income God gives to them!
70. I'D CALL THEM 110%ERS! THEY ARE ACTUALLY ALREADY GIVING 100% PLUS TITHING 10% OF THEIR INCOME! They're giving their whole lives & their time & their strength & serving the Lord completely fulltime--plus tithing 10%! PTL! GB'M! Those are the 110%ers!--Are you one?--Or just getting by cheap on only 10%?
71. NEVERTHELESS, THE THING THAT CAME TO ME WAS THAT WE NEED TO GO BACK TO GOD'S SIMPLE SYSTEM OF A FLAT 10% TITHE for all those who will not give 100%, themselves & all their time & strength & everything to the Lord. The Old Testament 10% is the minimum that they should give to receive the Word of God--10% flat right across the board for everybody, regardless of how much or how little their income may be, & that's that!
72. IF WE SHOULD GIVE A FAMILY NEWS OF ANY KIND, any kind of a Magazine to other people who are not even willing to tithe even the least & say they can't or aren't able or aren't willing, they should be thankful!--We really oughtta ask more of IRFers than anybody! They hardly deserve even a DFO Mag!--Except perhaps for those who are friends, newcomers or outsiders, relatives, etc., who need it.
73. BUT I'VE GOT A NOTION TO WEED OUT SOME OF THESE OLD HALF-HEARTED IRFERS! They're not even 10%-hearted because they're not even willing to tithe! They're giving as little as they possibly can to get as much as we are willing to give them!
74. AFTER NEARLY TWO YEARS OF WIM, SOME HAVE HAD PLENTY OF TIME TO REPENT & TITHE! We've had plenty of time to harvest & reap those IRFers who really are sincere & want to come in closer, & many of them have turned from IRFing to TRFing. We ought to put the pressure on some of these old bottles, the remaining IRFers, even more! Maybe if we show'm it's going to cost'm even more than tithe to get a DFO Magazine, maybe they'll turn to tithing!
75. OF COURSE, IF THAT'S THEIR MOTIVE, TO SAVE MONEY, GOD ISN'T GOING TO BLESS THEM FOR IT! Nevertheless, maybe it would weed out some of these old IRFers who have not repented & not come forward & not turned to the Lord & full tithing & giving & still aren't willing to support God's Work & give even the minimum of 10%!
76. 10% IS NOT A MAXIMUM, IT'S A MINIMUM! TRFers are not the maximum givers, they're the minimum givers! Sorry, TRFers, but 10% is the minimum, not a maximum! Tithing is a minimum! So, frankly, maybe we ought to charge the IRFers even more than what would be the normal average tithe, & they'll be getting even less Mag!
77. IT MAY SEEM UNFAIR TO SOME, but the way God looks at it, if you're not willing to even tithe, then we ought to make the Mag even more expensive for you to get even less than the tithers do!
78. IT OUGHT TO COST SOMETHING TO DISOBEY GOD in being unwilling to share & give & tithe & carry your fair share of the load! I mean there ought to be some kind of penalty to disobey God & not even tithe! So maybe if we raise their minimum & ask IRFers for even more, maybe they'd switch to tithing TRFers!
79. (MARIA: BUT IF WE DO THAT, THEN THEY'LL PROBABLY JUST SWITCH OVER & CALL THEMSELVES TITHERS!) Then they'll have to lie on every report as far as their total income is concerned, & that ought to certainly convict them every time they lie!--And certainly God will judge them accordingly every time they lie on their report & put that that's their total income & therefore this is their tithe, when they know it isn't! They will have to lie every time!
80. YOU'RE IN FRONT OF GOD'S COURT OF JUDGMENT EVERY TIME YOU MAKE OUT A TRF REPORT as to whether it's the truth or lies, especially if you're lying & cheating & robbing God of His tithe by reporting a false amount of income when you're actually receiving more! That we cannot control.--You'll have to face God & your own guilty conscience on that!
81. NOT EVEN GOD HIMSELF CAN STOP PEOPLE FROM LYING as long as there's free moral agency & there's free will, which He's given in this present dispensation of grace & freedom of choice. You have the liberty to do as you please, whether it be good or evil, whether it be to tell the truth or lie! Not God Himself is stopping this, neither can He control it as long as He's giving you the freedom of choice & free will.--It's impossible.
82. HE DIDN'T STOP ADAM & EVE IN THE GARDEN WHEN THEY MADE THE WRONG CHOICE. He had to let them do it. But He punished them, He rewarded them accordingly, according to their works & according to their words & lies & their evil doings & their disobedience!
83. SO IT'S NOT UP TO US TO JUDGE. We have been trying to put ourselves in the position of judging who is telling the truth & who isn't, & who is getting what they should & who isn't, & who should get what & who shouldn't. Whereas we are really not in a position to judge because we don't know the facts, we haven't got all the evidence.
84. ALL WE CAN DO IS LAY DOWN GOD'S LAW & SAY, "HERE IT IS, HERE'S THE SCRIPTURAL MINIMUM!--If you are not willing to give your all, the New Testament minimum, then for God's sake at least give the Old Testament minimum of 10%, which is the absolute minimum to help support God's Work!
85. MANY OF OUR PEOPLE ARE GIVING THEIR ALL IN FULLTIME SERVICE, PLUS GIVING 10% of their income as well! In a sense you'd say they're giving 110%! God bless them! I like the 110%ers! They're giving a 100% plus the 10% too!
86. THAT'S WHAT I'D CALL 110%ERS! That's an old, old expression, by the way, isn't it? We used to talk about some folks being 110%, right? Isn't that an old expression?--About people who are not only whole-hearted but who seem more than whole-hearted! They don't just give a 100%, they give a 110%! I'd say that of our people who are giving their fulltime in God's service plus giving 10% of their income as well.
87. GOD BLESS THE 110%ERS! Maybe a good title for this would be "The 110%ers!" Well, they certainly deserve the whole counsel of God & the whole Word of God & all the news & DO Magazine & the whole works! I feel like putting the screws on the DFOers, the mere IRFers who are not even willing to give 10%! Maybe we'll up the DFO Magazine for them to what it's worth!
88. (MARIA: WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE IRFERS that maybe have been TRFers before or have been disciples in the Family & know they should be giving all, but now they're really almost backsliden. You could call them backsliders because they know better & they have been part of the Family in the past & they probably were whole-hearted at one time, but now they're not.)
89. IN FACT, THE SIMPLE SOLUTION WHICH CAME TO ME WAS TO ABANDON THE WHOLE IRFER IDEA! Like it was good while it lasted, IRFing to encourage outsiders & friends & backsliders & old friends & former members to come back in & at least receive the minimum Word for a minimum. But like Paul says in Acts 17:30 on Mars hill to the idol-worshipping Greeks of Athens:
90. "THE TIMES OF THIS IGNORANCE GOD WINKED AT, BUT NOW COMMANDETH ALL MEN EVERYWHERE TO REPENT"!--Both IRFs & TRFs to become either whole-hearted fulltimers, 100%ers, or, at the very absolute minimum, 10%ers & forget the whole DO-DFO differentiation! This would save us so much trouble & problems in organising the Magazine into DO & DFO sections & all the rest!
91. (MARIA: YES, BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT? I just got the message that if you're going to have another 324-page Mag, we're going to have to cut out all the DO pages! He says we can't just pull them out like we've been doing. He said we'll have to cut out all the pages that are only for DO! I said,
92. (OH NO, THEN WE'LL HAVE TO PRINT TWO DIFFERENT MAGS! He said if it's over 200 pages we can't pull them out.) Yes, because it won't be stapled, it will be bound now! In other words, we can't just pull out a DO section any more out of the bigger Magazines. (Maria: Not if we make it over 200 pages.) Because with such a big Magazine, it is bound, so it is impossible to just merely unstaple & remove DO Letters, so that's another confirmation! (Maria: So I was thinking about having him do two Mags.)
93. ALL I KNOW IS THE ANSWER THAT CAME TO ME was that it was getting too complicated & we were making too many fine-line distinctions & differentiations & classifications & splitting hairs & dollars & whatnot, so that the best thing to do was to simply go back to God's simple little 10% plan:
94. EITHER YOU GIVE 10% OF YOUR TOTAL INCOME TO THE LORD THROUGH WS AS TITHE & YOU GET THE WHOLE THING, DO & ALL--OR YOU DON'T & YOU GET NOTHING, PERIOD!--Which will eliminate the IRF & DFO thing completely! (Maria: There will be less hard feelings that way. In one way there'll be less mess & less hard feelings & people getting their feelings hurt, etc.)
95. WE CAN MAYBE NOW SOMEHOW TERMINATE THE IRF PROGRAM WITH A FINAL ISSUE ANNOUNCING THAT, (This is it!). Yet in some ways we need to have some kind of a DFO thing. (Maria: I know, we do need something for outside friends & families etc.) This 324-page "Mobile Handbook" issue was sent out to everybody, wasn't it? (Maria: Yes, it was.)--DFO, DO--everything.
96. SO THE IRFS HAVE ALREADY HAD FAR MORE THAN THEIR SHARE! They got about six times as much this past month as they're supposed to get! They only bargained for 32 pages a week, or 128 pages a month! Therefore we have no reason to feel obligated to give the IRFs anymore. But we do need to get out one more to them to notify them (this is it!). Of course it seems the South American issue is going to be an unsplittable issue.
97. (MARIA: WHAT WE CAN DO IF YOU WANT IS, WE CAN PUBLISH TWO MAGS AGAIN IN AUGUST, ONE DO & ONE FINAL DFO. We could split it, publish the DFO in one Mag, & the DO in the other. The DO's would get both Mags, & the DFO's would just get the one that was theirs.) We need to terminate it with at least a final issue to announce that:
98. THIS WILL BE YOUR FINAL DFO-IRF ISSUE, & FROM NOW ON THERE WILL BE NO MORE DFO-IRF PROGRAM, BUT SIMPLY ONE DO MAGAZINE FOR ALL & ONLY TITHERS, & THAT'S THAT! So we need to give them notice, some warning in a final issue. So, well this is it! (Maria: We could give them this whole Letter!) Yes, I think this is it. This Letter will be it.
99. SO THAT'S THE ANSWER THAT CAME TO ME: YOU'RE MAKING IT TOO COMPLICATED, you're trying to please everybody, & as a result you're going to displease a lot of people--the "Old Man, the Boy & the Donkey" all over again! You just can't please everybody all the time. With our changes of program we might please some of the people all of the time, & all of the people some of the time, but we'll never please all of the people all of the time!
100. SO THE BEST WAY TO DO IT IS TO RETURN TO GOD'S SIMPLE BIBLICAL PLAN THAT YOU'RE EITHER A 110%ER OR YOU'RE A 10%ER, one or the other, & just return everybody to the tithing program, that only tithers get the Magazine at all, & they get all the Mag, whatever!--And there is no more DO Mag for anybody but tithers! That's the simple solution to the whole thing, & then we don't have all this splitting hairs over how much to whom & for what!
101. SO TO ELIMINATE ALL THESE QUESTIONS & ALL THESE PROBLEMS & all these complicated issues & theoretical situations & confusion, & to sweep away all the cobwebs & the dust that some are questioning, we'll just say, well, that's that!:
102.--A TITHER'S A TITHER, REGARDLESS OF THE AMOUNT OF YOUR TITHE, & YOU GET THE WHOLE MAGAZINE, PERIOD! I don't know, that might blow our whole financial thing to bits! It may result in a huge drop in our income, which has been pretty good since our minimums. You've been really forking over!
103. THIS IS GOING TO BE ANOTHER "DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!" TO "PROCLAIM LIBERTY!"--& THAT IS, THAT ALL TITHERS GET ALL THE MAGAZINE, & NOBODY ELSE GETS ANY, PERIOD! That's the simple solution. That's the thing that came to me. The way to solve the whole problem is just go back to God's way! I mean it was just as simple as could be, this answer came just like the Voice of God!:
104. "WELL, IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT FOLLOWING MY WORD, YOU'RE NOT TAKING MY OWN SIMPLE SOLUTION: I DECIDED ON 10% FOR EVERYBODY, REGARDLESS! Everybody who tithes would get My blessings!"--which are like the Magazines--& those who didn't, didn't!--Period! In other words, as far as God was concerned there were only two classes of people: Obedient tithers or disobedient non-tithers!
105. WE WERE STARTING TO HAVE TITHERS & OVER-TITHERS & UNDER-TITHERS, & DFOers & IRFers & over-IRFers & under-IRFers & SRFers & about ten different classes of givers, & trying to differentiate between them all & make it fair for all of them! Whereas, if some of them found out that others were getting this or that for less or more blah, blah, well, somebody's bound to get offended & feel unfairly treated. (Maria: Some probably less & some probably more!) Yes, they would really get offended.
106. WHEREAS, IF WE JUST TELL THEM A FLAT OUT, THAT'S THAT, THAT'S GOD'S PLAN THAT'S BIBLE!: You either give your 10% tithe & get the whole Magazine, or if you're not willing to tithe, you don't get anything, period! If you want to get it, well fine. PTL! But we might, if they give anything at all but less than their tithe, we might send them one DFO Magazine a month or something like that.
107. (MARIA: YOU KNOW WHAT I WAS GOING TO PROPOSE? I was going to propose like an amplified "Love is News" that could go to IRFers that are not as responsible as our more-or-less backslidden people that have been with the Family a long time but are still IRFing.
108. (WE HAVE THE PARENTS & RELATIVES & FAMILY FRIENDS FOR ONE THING & that's a pretty substantial number, who are not tithing & you'd never in this world expect them to tithe & maybe never will.
109. (WE ALSO HAVE NEWCOMERS WHO DO NOT KNOW US NOR THE LORD WELL YET, they're sort of new, they don't know too much about it all & you couldn't expect'm to tithe now, they're not really responsible yet, but for whom we could have a sort of "Love is News", a very, very basic Mag like for GP, but a little more amplified, a little bigger thing.)
110. I WOULD SAY MAYBE A SORT OF DFO OR "LOVE IS NEWS" MAGAZINE WITH FAMILY NEWS & KOMIX & so on, just once a month, just send them one issue a month maybe, a GP-DFO Magazine with maybe even a DFO MO Letter now & then!--Letters which are especially good for outside friends & GP. The simple way I think to decide who should get it & who shouldn't would be to send Lit to anybody who gives at least a $5 gift each month--we will send them one DFO or "LIN" Magazine a month if they give at least $5 a month to the Work.
111. (MARIA: BUT THE DFO "LOVE IS NEWS" WON'T NECESSARILY BE A TAKE-OFF ON OUR REGULAR MONTHLY MAGAZINE. It will be an entirely separate Magazine that we do separately each month, just for DFO-GP.) Yes, right! (Maria: A simple magazine but not the Magazine, not a pull-out part of the Tithers' Magazine.) It could be an accumulation of DFO Material that we'll just put in a separate issue.
112. SO THE POINT IS NOW, THAT ALL TITHERS WILL GET THE WHOLE COUNSEL OF GOD THE DO MAG, REGARDLESS OF THE AMOUNT OF THEIR TITHE--that's the simple answer that came to me. They'll get the whole Magazine, the DO Magazine, both of them each month--or all DO Material whatever it is.
113. THE OTHERS WILL GET NOTHING, unless, out of the goodness of our hearts & the mercy of God, we decide to give them a little DFO FN or LIN of some kind just for outside friends & regular givers who're not tithers. We can maybe make it a separate title so it wouldn't get confused, like, "Love Is News", whereas the tithers get the FN.
114. THAT'S THE SOLUTION THAT CAME TO ME, that we just need to get back to God's simple original plan when He was dealing with the ignorant & the half-hearted & the not-even-half-hearted, like the Old Testament Jews! For them He just required what He considered was the minimum that they ought to give--10%!
115. THAT 10% WAS PROBABLY ABOUT ALL HE KNEW THE OLD JEWS WERE GOING TO BE WILLING TO GIVE, & some of them weren't even willing to give that! Knowing they were Jews & what Jews are like, He figured that was pretty good for them to even give 10%, & those tithers got the blessing of God. Anybody else that was not even obeying the minimum didn't get the full blessing, regardless of the amounts.
116. I JUST GOT AGGRAVATED SPLITTING HAIRS OVER THESE AMOUNTS, so much for this & so much for that & so much for so & so. It kind of disgusted me that we were getting so mercenary & that I was being pressured into it really by constant propositions proposing this kind of problem & that kind of situation & how are we going to solve this & do that & so on.
117. GOD JUST IMPRESSED ME TO SWEEP THE WHOLE THING UNDER THE RUG, SWEEP IT ALL AWAY! Cast it all out & let's reinstitute God's only solution, & that is just straight tithing, that 10%ers, only the straight tithers, get the Magazine!--That's that!--And if they happen to be 110%ers serving God fulltime & getting the Magazine too, well, praise God!--They'll get the Magazine & God's blessing on their lives for their 110%--a lot more than the Magazine!
118. SO PRAISE THE LORD, THAT'S THE SOLUTION! That's what came to me & that's what we're going to have to do. From now on, it's either you're tithing or you're not, that's all!
119. AND THE FOLKS WHO DECIDE THEY WANT TO CHEAT & ROB GOD by claiming to be tithers when they're not, & falsify their reports & put on there a lie as to their total income, well, that's up to God to judge, not us! We're not tax investigators & we can't enforce it, but God can! He knows, & He will judge everyone according to his works & his giving & his tithing!--Praise God! Amen?
120. SO FROM NOW ON, GOD WILLING, THE WHOLE MAGAZINE WILL GO TO EVERYBODY WHO TITHES, no matter how much or how little, & that's that! It may mean a drop in our income, maybe some people won't try so hard & they won't tithe as much & will think they can get by with less. But that's for God to judge, that's for God to reward everyone according to his works.
121. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO GIVE THE MAGAZINE JUST TO EVERYBODY WHO SENDS IN THEIR TITHE, & I doubt if anybody is going to try to say that they earn less than say a hundred dollars a month, the tithe of which would not even cover the actual cost of sending'm the Magazine!--And just trust God & those whose income & tithe is larger to help pay for it!--A sort of share the wealth & Word plan!--That's the way God wants it! That way we can still send it to those poor who really can't tithe much, even if it doesn't amount to the cost of the Magazine!
122. (MARIA: THE QUESTION THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE ASKED US ABOUT IS THEIR PROVISIONING TITHE: What is their provisioning tithe & where should it come from? Some people were very sweet & said, "Oh, we didn't understand that! But we're starting right now, & we know the Lord will bless us!" Other people wrote in & said, "Well, what do you mean? What do you mean by this? We didn't know we were supposed to tithe our provisioning, & we don't understand how it operates. How in the world can we?"
123. (HOW SHOULD THEY TITHE THEIR PROVISIONMENTS?) For example, if they don't know the value of jewelry given to them by fish, or if they don't know the value of the articles, how would they tithe it if they get a huge shipment of goods running into thousands of dollars when they don't even have the cash to pay the value of the tithe in cash! What do they do in a case like that?)
124. WELL, OF COURSE THEY COULD ALWAYS GET JEWELRY ESTIMATED AT A DEALER, jewelers will usually be willing to roughly evaluate an item if you really want to know, or they could estimate it themselves as honestly as they know how, or even sell it & tithe from the amount they receive for it.
125. --AND AS FOR A LARGE GIFT OF MATERIAL THINGS, a shipment of shoes or furniture or books or survival foods or whatever it might be, they could even tithe 10% of the actual goods! One Home got a gift of $10,000 worth of all kinds of supplies & equipment, & so they want to know how they are going to tithe $10,000 worth of material non-monetary gift, the tithe of which would be worth a thousand dollars, when they don't even have a thousand dollars cash to send as the tithe!
126. AS I TOLD YOU, THEY COULD NOTIFY WORLD SERVICES of the type of gift & its amount & what their estimated tithe would be, & find out from World Services if perhaps any WS Unit or Units could use 10% of those goods somewhere where we could re-cycle them to perhaps some needy missionaries or in some needy field or some World Service Unit that might need that very sort of thing.
127. THE TITHE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE IN CASH IF THEY DON'T HAVE THE CASH. The usual tithe of the Temple in the Old Testament was actually in oxen, cattle, sheep, crops & material things. They gave anything of value, jewelry, money & so on.
128. THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF THE GOOD PURPOSES OF THE MONEY CHANGERS IN THE TEMPLE, who however turned out to be thieves & robbers & cheats (Mt.21:12-13.) & would steal great portions of the gifts & give poor exchange for what the actual value of the gift was. For example, if they brought in grain & the Temple didn't need that much grain, its granaries were full, the money changers would buy it at real cut prices & not give the tither his full value, & this way the money-changers would cheat both the customer & the Temple & God! Because if they paid less than the grain was actually worth, then the 10% for the Temple would be less then what it was supposed to be.
129. THE MONEY CHANGERS BOUGHT ANIMALS, GRAIN, JEWELRY, & ALL KINDS OF THINGS, or they exchanged foreign money for the Temple currency, which was the shekel, but finally they got so crooked they'd give them a poor exchange rate, & in so doing they were robbing both the customer, the Temple & the Lord!--(Which is why the Lord was so provoked with them & called them thieves & robbers & drove them violently out of the Temple! (Mt.21:12,13.) Jesus said, "Ye have made My Father's house of prayer a den of thieves!", because they were stealing from the people, the Temple & God! But the original idea was good--to exchange goods for money. We do have quite a few folks, especially FFers, who get gifts of material things, like clothing, jewelry, plane tickets, trips, furniture, expenses paid, or in having babies paid for etc.
130. SIMPLY NOTIFY WORLD SERVICES ON YOUR MONTHLY TRF REPORT that you received such & such a material gift of such & such a type of goods & ask how you should tithe it, if you do not have sufficient cash to give the cash equivalent of the tithe. World Services may very well know some place for you to put it, or some WS Unit where these materials are needed, or some needy field you could give it to, or nearby needy missionaries who could use it.
131. JEWELRY OF COURSE CAN BE VERY EASILY SOLD IF NECESSARY. If you're getting lots of such gifts from your fish, you could probably sell some piece of it that's worth 10% of all you received without it being necessarily missed by any particular fish, or just simply say that you gave it to someone who needed it, or even to the Lord!
132. THAT YOU ALWAYS TITHE, WOULD BE A TESTIMONY, that you gave it to God's Service or to some other needy person or missionaries. A part of the ministry of the Temple was charity & to help the poor, & this is also channeling some of what is given to the needy & to the poor, which we do, right?--To needy missionaries & fields & needy projects of the Lord.
133. WE'VE JUST GIVEN AWAY $27,000 WORTH OF BOOKS TO OUR NEEDY AROUND THE WORLD, missionaries & families & Homes who apparently couldn't even afford to pay the postage! So we're frequently giving to help the poor, poor missionaries, poor fields, poor LIMs, needy cases etc.
134. SO NEARLY ALL OF WHAT WE RECEIVE GOES TO THE POOR, INCLUDING POOR US, who need some to live on in order to deliver the Words & the Magazine & feed & take care of all the sheep in our Family fold! We shepherds have to partake of the increase or income, as God's Word says that the husbandman should be first partaker of the fruits of the crops, flocks or herds etc. Because of the Shepherd's or Farmer's work & his services, he has earned his share of the produce or results or income--at least his expenses. So we're part of the poor.--You'd be very poor without us, that's for sure!
135. SO PART OF THE TEMPLE MINISTRY WAS TO CHANNEL ALL OF THIS GIVING of gifts & tithes to wherever it was most needed including the support of the temple & all of its ministers, priests & Levites--which in this case is us, WS, your today's spiritual leaders & Levites, the elders & deacons of our modern church.
136. WE ELDERS ARE YOUR SPIRITUAL MINISTERS, & OUR DEACONS OPERATE THE MATERIAL MINISTRIES or tables & feeding, such as various WS Units' ministries, like WIM, WSFO, WW, MWM, CROs, LIMs, the Printing, mailing, Publications & Creations departments, with all the designing, artwork, photography, typing & secretarial work that needs to be done to create the Mag & Lit & administer our many Temple ministries, as well as distributions to the poor.
137. ALL THIS HAS TO BE PAID FOR & ALL THIS COSTS MONEY, all the various branches & departments & ministries of His present-day spiritual Temple, the present spiritual ministries of the Priests & Levites--or elders & deacons--of the house of the Lord. Our greater Temple today is our Family as a whole, of whom we at WS are the Temple ministers, Priests & Levites--your elders & deacons of today's New Church!
138. SO IT IS TO TODAY'S TEMPLE MINISTERS, WS, THAT YOUR TITHES MUST BE GIVEN. So, the value of any such material gifts could be estimated, & if you are unable to pay the cash value of the 10% tithe, you might consider selling enough of it to do so, if WS cannot find a place to use the goods.
139. AND YOU DON'T NEED TO USE THAT TITHE YOURSELF, NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK OR SAY!--That's God's small portion of the 100% He's given you! It belongs to God! And it's all part of God's test of faith. He knew that you might often need the tithe or it would look like part of your necessary living expenses, & you might feel you really couldn't spare it.
140. BUT TITHING IS AN ACT OF FAITH & OBEDIENCE, an act of obedience because of faith when you tithe, even when it looks like you can't afford it, because it shows that you have faith that God is going to support you anyhow & is going to bless you for it, & is going to more than reimburse you--maybe not at the moment, maybe not that month & maybe not materially, maybe not financially, but perhaps, spiritually or physically or in some other way--in health, protection, guardianship or the supply of other needs.
141. SO THE LORD STILL EXPECTS IT TO BE TITHED, even if it is a material gift, it is an income, it helps you materially in some way. So, as it is a material asset & therefore actually a part of your income, it is therefore subject to God's law of tithing & in some way should be tithed, either by the giving of 10% of it to WS or our Units, or as we suggest from 10% of its partial sale, or from other financial gifts or in some other way: Either by trading in part of it to WS, or by selling part of it to get the cash tithe, or donating part of it to some ministry of the Temple, some World Services Unit or World Services missionary or some needy field somewhere where it can be re-cycled into the ministry of the Temple.
142. THEREFORE SUCH MATERIAL GIFTS OR INCOME SHOULD BE REPORTED ON YOUR MONTHLY TRF REPORT, that you have received this gift estimated at a value of so much, & you can either say you are waiting to sell part of it in order to pay the 10% tithe, or you would like WS to let you know what to do with 10% of it, where to give it or whom to give it to or who to ship it to, or send the 10% in cash.
143. IF WORLD SERVICES ANYWHERE IN SOME ONE OF ITS MANY WORLDWIDE UNITS COULD USE IT, or if we know of what missionary field needs it, you could ship it to them & consider that the shipping cost would be a part of the tithe together with the value of the material. This then could be your full tithe of its actual value. The same is true of the sales of property, stocks, bonds, etc.
144. ANOTHER QUESTION HAS COME UP ABOUT FOOD STAMPS you get to buy or get free food under welfare programs, & what about the Social Security benefits, medical care or welfare you receive? Maybe you get free rent, free food or free medical care through Social Security & so on. How are you going to estimate the value of these things, how are you going to pay tithe on them?
145. WELL, ABOUT ALL YOU CAN DO IS ESTIMATE THEIR CASH VALUE AS BEST YOU CAN, & then if the Lord also supplies you with some kind of financial income, try to give the cash value tithe of it out of what actual cash money income you do receive. Some of you say that would sometimes take all the cash money you've got! You get 90% of your income through material welfare benefits, & what little cash money you have, it would take all of that to pay the 10% tithe! Well, if it does, God will bless you for it!
146. IF IT TAKES ALL YOUR ACTUAL CASH TO PAY THE 10% TITHE, GOD WILL BLESS YOU FOR IT. Of course, if all you got was just free food, free rent, medical services & no cash at all, & so you had no cash whatsoever, well, it would be pretty hard to pay it in cash, as you can't give us 10% of your medical services or the free food you've eaten or the free rent you've received.
147. BUT I'M SURE IN SUCH CASES GOD WILL SUPPLY SOME KIND OF MATERIAL INCOME WHICH YOU CAN SHARE & which you could find possible to tithe even if you could not send the 10% cash tithe. I believe that the Lord will bless you in some way that you will be able to pay your tithe. There'd be few & very rare cases where you had no cash whatsoever with which to pay your tithe.
148. I'M SURE THAT THE LORD WOULD SUPPLY AT LEAST 10% OF YOUR TOTAL INCOME IN CASH, IN WHICH CASE YOU SHOULD GIVE IT. You should tithe it, even if the rest of it is all in goods & services & other material income. That's my answer & that's the way they did it in the Old Testament & that's the way they did it in the Temple where not all their income was cash. Most of their income then was herds & flocks & crops & gold & jewels & things like that, but they still tithed. And if they didn't receive their income in actual cash, then they simply tithed with what cash they received in exchange for the sale of their flocks & the sale of their crops & the sale of their gold & jewels.
149. THEY USUALLY SOLD THEM, & THEN BROUGHT THE TITHE IN CASH TO THE TEMPLE. Or as I said, they had money-changing brokers right there in the Temple who would buy their material goods, flocks, herds, grain, crops, gold & silver & supposedly give them the cash value, which then they could tithe to the Temple. But sad to say, the money changers often cheated them & thereby cheated & robbed God, too. That's why the Lord didn't like them.--So be sure you don't get cheated by some greedy buyer! So that's the best answer that I could possibly give to that question. Anything else?
150. (MARIA: SOME OF OUR FOLKS RECEIVE LARGE MONETARY AMOUNTS like inheritances or large gifts from their parents or trust fund bank accounts that have built up over the years, or stocks, bonds, real estate, etc., Some give 10% & keep the rest, or give some of it to missionaries or fields they know directly.
151. (IN OUR PAST, IT USED TO BE THAT ANYONE WHO GOT SUCH GIFTS WAS EXPECTED TO "FORSAKE IT ALL" TO THE FAMILY, WS or the leaders or whatever, & put it all in the Family pot, so to speak. But it seems that lately, with them having so many expenses for survival & caravans & so on & so forth they tithe their 10%, but then they usually keep the rest to use for their own needs, caravans, survival, or for other missionaries who are in their locations or fields in which they're most interested, or people they want to donate special funds to. So some have this question,
152. ("SHOULD I GIVE IT ALL TO THE FAMILY OR WS LIKE WE USED TO DO, OR SHOULD I JUST TITHE MY 10% & then use the rest to get my caravan that I need for myself & my family, or my survival food, or get caravans for other needy people, or help the missionaries or certain fields or ministries I'm especially interested in?" A lot of people keep the remaining 90% of these extra funds for those purposes.) Well, I try to always look to the Scriptures & the Lord for these answers & see if there is a Scriptural precedent, & the first thing that comes to me on that one is:
153. ARE YOU A NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTIAN OR ARE YOU AN OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIAN? Are you a 100%er, a New Testament Christian, & do you give everything to the Lord & His Service, or are you an Old Testament Christian & just give 10%? It depends on just what kind of a Christian you are & what kind of a Family member you are.
154. ARE YOU A 100%-WHOLE-HEARTED FULL-TIME DISCIPLE & WANT TO GIVE YOUR ALL TO THE LORD & his Family & His Temple--World Services--or are you just a 10%er, not even half-hearted but only 10%-hearted & only want to give the minimum 10% of what your increase has been, only 10% of your income to the Lord & His Service?
155. WELL, GOD MAY LET YOU GET BY WITH GIVING ONLY THE ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED MINIMUM OF 10%, but definitely the 10% has to come to the Temple! He said in Malachi 3:10: "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse", which was the Temple warehouse. All the tithe, all of the 10% definitely goes to the Temple ministry, which in this case is World Services.
156. WE ARE THE TEMPLE MINISTRY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH OF THE FAMILY. We are the Temple leadership, the priests & the Levites, the Temple ministry of our New Church, our Family of Love, & the tithe is the least required by God & must go to the Temple first. That is the absolute minimum which, according to the Old Mosaic Law, they were required to give.
157. CHRIST'S NEW LAW OF LOVE REQUIRES 100%, ALL! But if you're not willing to voluntarily & freely give all, then the absolute minimum that you are required to give is 10% under the Old Law. People who do not & will not fulfill Christ's 100% Law of Love, then they have to abide at least under the Mosaic 10% Law. Only the 100% Law of Love supercedes it.
158. IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO OBEY THE FULL 100% OF CHRIST'S 100% LAW OF LOVE, THEN YOU ARE AT LEAST STILL UNDER THE OLD 10% LAW. Even the New Testament teaches this. Only we who have received the sacrifice of Christ & His personal salvation & understand God's new 100% Law of Love & forsaking all, giving all, only then are we no longer under the Old Testament Law. Because the Old Testament Law was not even as strict as Christ's new Law of Love!
159. TOTAL LOVE GIVES ALL! The Old Testament Law only required 10%, the tithe, only 10% of your total income. God's New Testament Law of Love requires everything, you, your family, your life, your time, your services, your strength, 100% full-time service! That's still, as far as we're concerned, God's Law of Love & what He expects of you today.
160. BUT HE MAY LET YOU GET BY WITH THE OLD 10% LOVE, THE ABSOLUTE MINIMUM under the Old Mosaic Law. But you may find that He's going to judge you according to that law too, which was pretty harsh & strict! But if that's the only way you want to live, that's how I would answer that.--What was the question? Did I answer it?--Ha! Oh, I remember now: Some of you say,
161. "WELL, WE'LL GIVE THE TITHES TO THE TEMPLE, 10% TO WORLD SERVICES, BUT THE REST OF IT, THE 90% MOST OF IT, WE WANT TO SHARE WITH OURSELVES & OTHERS we know of who need help, Homes we know of, missionaries, fields, projects, maybe Music With Meaning, or maybe this Book or that publishing project, or the Indian field, or something else that we know of that is worthy of our gifts.
162. THAT IS THE MINIMUM ACCEPTABLE WITH GOD.--And He will reward you according to your motives & according to your works, & how much your sacrifice really was. As we have often said, "God isn't going to judge you according to what you gave, but how much you have left." Did you get that?
163. GOD IS NOT GOING TO JUDGE YOU ACCORDING TO WHAT YOU GIVE, BUT HOW MUCH YOU HAVE LEFT! In the day that Jesus stood in the Temple & judged the large donations of the Scribes & the Pharisees & the rich in comparison with the tiny bit the poor widow gave, He was judging not according to the amount of the gifts, because her gift was the absolute smallest any could give, a mere mite, part of a penny, a mere fraction of what the rich were giving.
164. BUT THE POOR WIDOW HAD NOTHING LEFT!--SHE'D GIVEN HER ALL!--100%! And that was, as far as God was concerned, the greatest gift of the day! The poor widow had cast in all she had & had nothing left! But He said they had cast in of their abundance, great gifts, very large gifts to the Temple. But they had much, much more left! So God was judging the rich through Christ that day according to what they had left.
165. IF YOU GIVE YOUR ALL, GOD WILL REWARD YOU ACCORDINGLY & GIVE YOU EVERYTHING IN RETURN, EVEN A HUNDREDFOLD!--100 times as much as you've given! He said so, He promised it! (Mt.19:29.) He's got to fulfill His Own Word, the Words of Jesus Christ Himself, Who said if you forsake everything, forsake all, houses, lands, mother, father, brother, sister, husband or wife & children,
166. IF YOU GIVE ALL, HE WILL GIVE YOU BACK ONE HUNDREDFOLD IN THIS LIFE!--AND IN THE WORLD TO COME LIFE ETERNAL!--ALL THIS & HEAVEN TOO! You can't beat that! If you give 100%, you are going to get back 100 times that 100%! Do you know how much that is?--That's 10,000%! Boy! You can't beat that kind of return on your investment! There's no other investment in this whole World that pays that much!
167. THOSE WHO GIVE ALL, WILL RECEIVE 100-FOLD HERE & NOW!--10,000%! God has promised it! You will receive it either financially or materially or spiritually or in protection or in souls, or in some type of rewards. Having left a home, you may not receive exactly 100 homes in return, although we have!--In fact, even more!
168. WE LEFT SEVERAL HOMES TIME & AGAIN, & we now have not a mere 100 homes--maybe because we left so many homes--we now have about 2,000 Homes!--& nearly 8,000 home folks! We left our old loved ones--mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives & children, & we now have about 8,000! So if we had even left only, let's see, 1/100th of 2,000 homes is what?--20 homes!
169. WELL, MAYBE WE DID LEAVE 20 HOMES FOR THE LORD--I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED! SO WE GOT BACK 2,000 HOMES! Maybe we did leave 80 relatives.--Well, now we've gotten back 8,000! So He has certainly rewarded us, your leaders, with a literal material 100-fold! That means a hundred times, not a mere 100%. If He'd only give you back a 100%, that would only equal what you gave.
170. BUT GOD GIVES YOU BACK 10,000%!--Not a mere 100% not even only 10 times what you give, but 100 times what you give! He said flat out, specifically, numerically, mathematically, Jesus Himself promised "100 fold"! Now you can theorise that & rationalise it & try to explain it away any way you want to, but that is a specific mathematical figure that is hard to get around, that Jesus literally will give you back a 100 fold!
171. BUT, YOU MAY SAY, WELL, HA, HE MAY HAVE GIVEN YOU BACK A HUNDRED TIMES AS MANY HOMES & a hundred times as much family relatives & children, but now wait a minute! What about that mates business, that husbands or wives? Well, ahem, I think I've gone into that before. I'm quite sure God has already given me--& I know this by actual count--I've already had more than a hundred women even sexually!--And I dare say that of our 5,000 adult members we have about 2,000 of you women whom I'm sure would like to consider yourselves my wives!--So I've only given up about 20 wives & got back 2,000!
172. THE WAY YOU POUR IN YOUR NUDIE CUTIE PHOTOS TO ME & THE LOVING THINGS YOU SAY, how you wish you could be here in person to give me yourselves, your naked bodies shown in your photos, & your love, I'm sure that every one of you consider yourselves very thankful to be one of my wives!--Amen?
173. SO ALTHOUGH I'M CONTINUALLY GIVING UP WIVES FOR THIS PARTICULAR MINISTRY, I HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED ABOUT 2,000 IN RETURN!--Of whom I've only had the opportunity to take advantage of about 100 so far!--But just wait'll we get to Heaven, you "Heavenly Houris"! (See coming Letter, "Houris of Heaven!")--And the others of you men in the Family, I'm sure that whatever wives you have given up for the Lord, you could certainly consider that there are many women throughout the Family who would be happy to be yours, at least a hundred!
174. ANY OF YOUR SISTERS WHEREVER YOU GO IN THE WHOLE WORLD should be willing to give themselves to you & be at least your part-time temporary wife wherever you are, & many have. So I think that's pretty well fulfilled throughout the Family as well. God has not held back any good thing from you.--Amen? (Psalm 84:11.)
175. BESIDES, WE'RE SUPPOSED TO ALL BE ONE, "ONE WIFE" (No.249), all of us mated together & all of us sharing in every way, including sexually sharing mates & lovers & brothers & sisters & everything. So that's the way God obviously intended it to be, & that's how even that part of the 100-fold promise is fulfilled as far as I'm concerned. It certainly has been fulfilled in my case, & I'm sure it could be & would be in yours if you needed it & there was an occasion for it.--Pray!
176. SO HOW CAN YOU BEAT THAT KIND OF A DEAL!--How can you beat that kind of rewards? God's financial & material rewards are tops in no matter what field, whether it be in finances or material things or protection or spiritual gifts or souls or sex or what have you!--100 fold!
177. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF REWARDS THAT GOD GIVES, & though a lot of what you will get you may not be getting here yet, you will! Jesus promised that 100-fold in this life!--And in the World to come Life eternal! So, all this & Heaven too!
178. YOU GET ALL THIS & HEAVEN TOO!--IF YOU GIVE IT ALL! You will get it all back, & in fact you'll get back a hundred times as much as you give! Any one of you who has given your all in fulltime service for the Lord, anyone who sincerely & genuinely has given your lives & your families & everything you've got to God & His loving Service to others & is serving Him fulltime & giving Him fulltime service, forsaking all for Him, I'm sure that anyone of you who has done this could honestly & whole-heartedly & enthusiastically say that you probably already have received a hundred fold in blessings & rewards & gifts & materially & in protection & spiritual gifts & souls & all the various kinds of rewards that God gives in this life! You now already have your 100-fold reward in many respects.
179. SO THEREFORE, I DON'T THINK ANYBODY CAN COMPLAIN WHO HAS GIVEN A 100%! You're going to get back not a 100%, not just what you gave, but you're going to get back 100-fold, 10,000%! So none of you who gives 100% should complain that you're not getting back more than enough! You're going to get back 100 times the full value!
180. BUT EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO GIVE JUST 10%, EVEN TO THEM GOD HAS PROMISED TO OPEN UP THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN & POUR OUT SUCH A BLESSING YOU WON'T HAVE ROOM ENOUGH TO HOLD IT ALL! Now you only 10%-ers may get back a hundred fold more than your 10%, but even that's 1000%! If you gave only 10%, you can't necessarily expect back more than 100 fold of your 10% in return. But who knows?--You might! If those who give all, 100%, get back a hundred fold, 100 times as much, or 10,000%,
181. WHY COULDN'T THOSE WHO GIVE 10% ALSO EXPECT TO GET BACK 100-FOLD OF AT LEAST THEIR 10%?--OR 1000%!--In other words, 100 times as much as the 10% you did give!--1000%! I wouldn't be a bit surprised that you do & you will! You tithers should receive at least 100 times as much as the 10% you did give!--WOW!--No wonder He said you wouldn't have room enough to hold it!--So of course you'll have to give it away!
182. OF COURSE, IT'S NOT NEAR AS MUCH AS 100%ERS--THEY GET BACK A HUNDRED TIMES THEIR 100%! But it seems logical, mathematical, reasonable & Scriptural that the 10%ers will get back 100-fold of their 10%, whereas the 100%ers are getting back a hundred fold of their 100%! That makes sense.
183. --SO YOU GUYS WHO ARE GIVING LESS THAN 100% ARE REALLY LOSIN' MONEY, BUT STILL IN THERE! The Bible certainly implies that for tithers, 10%ers should also get back 100 times what you give!--Even if you give only 10% He says He'll give you back more than you'll be able to hold!
184. --100 X 10% =1000%! WOW! Well, you were able to hold the 10%, you were even able to hold the 100%, in fact you did withhold 90%! So if now He's going to give you back more than you can hold, it sound like He might even give you a hundred times your measly 10%!--Or 1000%!
185. WOW! WHATTA DEAL! YOU JUST CAN'T BEAT THAT! YOU CAN'T OUT-GIVE GOD! HAL! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE! So that's the way I look at it. You were asking the question of what you should give & where you should give it. Well, there's no doubt about where the 10% is supposed to go according to God's law of tithing, if you want to get by with the minimum of what you should give directly to the Temple, World Services, then, it's 10%.
186. WORLD SERVICES, OUR PRESENT-DAY TEMPLE, CONDUCTS MULTIPLE SERVICES AROUND THE WORLD WITH NEARLY 250 PRIESTS & LEVITES, elders & deacons of His present-day spiritual Temple, & we are responsible for their full support, plus many others & missionaries to whom we give part-time support, partial support or other help.
187. THE NEXT QUESTION IS, IF YOU DO GIVE YOUR 10% TO WORLD SERVICES, IS IT ALL RIGHT IF YOU GIVE THE OTHER 90% TO YOURSELVES OR OTHER WORTHY CAUSES such as the minstrels in India or some Mideast missionary or some book or publication project or something else that you are particularly concerned should be well supported outside of WS.
188. OF COURSE! THIS IS PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE TO THE LORD! I have no objection to it & I don't think God has any objection to it either. If you prefer to give just the minimum 10% to World Services directly, then you prefer to give special gifts from the remaining 90% to other worthy causes, missionaries, projects or whatever, this is perfectly acceptable.
189. THESE ARE CALLED "GIFTS & OFFERINGS" ABOVE YOUR TITHE. If you want to buy a car or trailer for some poor missionary or some poor musician, or help finance a new studio for MWM or you want to pay for a new Volume published by GLP or FC or Wildwind or whatever, then this is perfectly acceptable with Lord.
190. YOU CAN GIVE ACCORDING TO YOUR OWN CHOICE as you see fit & feel led to other missions & missionaries & projects which you feel worthy & needy of your support. Having given your required minimum of 10% to the Temple, World Services, if you do not want to give it all, the New Testament Christian standard of 100%, then you may give the rest as you see fit to other worthy causes--within the Family we hope.
191. THE LORD BY HIS SPIRIT THROUGH THE MOUTH OF HIS PROPHET PETER TOLD ANANIAS & SAPPHIRA (Acts 5:4) that while it was yet in their hand it was theirs to do with as they pleased. Their sin was that they pretended to give it all, whereas they were only giving part of it & kept back part. That was their sin, that they were lying to the Holy Spirit & were lying to the church, pretending to be 100%ers when they were only part per-centers, reporting only part of their income instead of all of it.
192. THAT WAS THEIR SIN, THEIR LYING & DECEIVING & TRYING TO GET CREDIT FOR GIVING ALL when they were only giving part of it, which is why God rebuked them & struck them both dead on the spot! But if you're just being perfectly honest & you're not claiming to be giving it all, you're just tithing 10% to World Services, & you're also giving to other worthy Family projects, feel free to do so.
193. BUT DON'T CLAIM TO BE A 100%ER OR EVEN A 10%ER IF IT'S NOT THE TRUTH! You certainly can't claim to be a 100%er if you don't give it all to God!--And don't claim to even be a 10%er if you're not really tithing 10%! You can give it all to the Lord by giving it all to His various ministers & various needs & needy fields & missionaries & other Godly projects, & the Lord could then give you credit for giving 100% to Him if you really gave it all away to His work--10% to us or more, & the other 90% or less to all these other works of the Lord & people of God, missionaries, needy fields & so on.
194. THE LORD WILL GIVE YOU CREDIT FOR GIVING 100% TO HIS WORK, EVEN THOUGH IT DIDN'T ALL GO THROUGH OUR TEMPLE. That's up to you & your conscience & what the Lord lays on your heart & how you feel led of the Spirit, that's entirely of your own free will & choice to make that decision yourself to do as you see fit.--You can even give your 10% to some other genuine work of God, but then you'll get their mag--not ours!--Ha!
195. BUT GOD HAS CERTAIN DEFINITE GUIDELINES & MINIMUMS OF GIVING & TITHING & RATES OF REWARD: If you give 100%, the Lord's going to give you back 10,000%! If you tithe 10% minimum to His Temple only, He'll give you back 1000%! That's a terrific return on any kind of investment, a fantastic interest on any kind of a deposit!
196. WHOEVER HEARD OF GETTING BACK 10,000% ON YOUR INVESTMENT!--OR EVEN 1000%! Even if you only give 10%, He's promised to give you back more than you can hold!--100-fold or 1000%, 100 times as much as you gave even if you only gave 10%!
197. THAT'S THE WAY GOD IS: HE LOVES TO OUTGIVE YOU, & HE'LL NEVER LET YOU OUT-GIVE HIM! He always gives you much, much more than you ever give, & you'll never be able to outgive Him! The more you give, the more He'll give you back. I have proved that so many times!--It doesn't matter how much we give, He gives us back more than we gave very single time!
198. WE RECENTLY GAVE HALF OF SOME OF OUR INCOME TO THE LIMS, & expected it to make a big dent in our own WS income. Instead, God has increased our income more & more to meet the greater & greater needs of His work! He hasn't let us suffer for it.
199. HE HAS ACTUALLY PROSPERED US INSTEAD & increased it & made our WS income even more than ever, so that we're having to re-distribute it again & find more people to give it to & places to put it & needy fields & needy missionaries & worthy causes & projects to support in His Work.
200. WE'VE RECENTLY DISTRIBUTED TO ALL OF OUR WORLD SERVICE UNITS LARGE SURVIVAL GIFTS equivalent to their usual monthly budgets for their survival needs, plus extra gifts to other needy projects, fields & missionaries etc. It's almost endless! We always try to share the extra wealth that God gives when we receive more than our actual needs, as we know that God is giving it to us in order that we might give away the surplus to more needy field & causes.
201. IF WE RECEIVE MORE INCOME THAN WE HAVE OUTGO, THEN WE KNOW GOD WANTS US TO GIVE IT, invest it in more Magazines, more Books, more literature, more missionaries, more help to our Units, more help to needy fields, more help to worthy projects like Music With Meaning & Child-care materials & all kinds of things. We turn right around & give it right back into God's Work wherever we feel it's most needed.
202. NOW IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHERE TO INVEST YOUR MONEY IN GOD'S WORK & want to give not only your 10% but more as many do who give special gifts above their tithe to World Services, you too are welcome to do so, & we will try to put it wherever we feel it's most needed & where it's most deserved & in the most worthy & fruitful causes.
203. WE WILL BE YOUR INVESTMENT BROKERS FOR YOU & REINVEST IT FOR YOU IN HIS KINGDOM! If you don't know exactly where to invest your extra funds, if you have no other particular worthy cause that you know about to whom to give it, if you want to give gifts & offerings above your tithe, then we will be glad to reinvest them for you wherever they are most needed.
204. MANY DO & MANY HAVE, & IT KEEPS COMING IN MORE ALL THE TIME, thank God & God bless you, & we keep giving it away again as fast as we can to needy missionaries, needy fields, needy projects, needy units, worthy causes & worthwhile investments in His Kingdom & Work & Services. So, that's the way it works:
205. THE 100%ERS WHO WANT TO GIVE IT ALL TO THE LORD THROUGH US WILL GET BACK 10,000%!--Maybe not all from us, but certainly from the Lord! He's promised it, 100-fold! Even if you're not giving it all to us, if you're giving 100% to the Lord in some way, in your life & time & service & strength & health & family & children & so on, then surely God will repay you accordingly as Jesus promised--100-fold, 10,000%!
206. IF YOU ARE GOING TO GIVE LESS, LIKE ONLY THE 10%, THEN HE WILL REWARD YOU ACCORDINGLY, giving you back less than 100%ers, but certainly many more times than you gave. So if you want to give just the minimum tithe of 10% that is required, God will reward you accordingly.
207. THE TITHE IS NOT A GIFT, IT IS A REQUIRED MINIMUM TAX AS FAR AS GOD'S CONCERNED. It's the minimum income tax that God required of His children, at least 10%--which is a lot less than most governments charge! U.S. taxes are now running from 40% to 90%! Of course, God requires 100% of sold-out Christians in this age of Grace & the Love of Jesus with His full salvation!
208. GOD NOW EXPECTS YOU TO GIVE 100%--Not only your whole income but your whole lives & your families--everything in His fulltime service! But if you do not give that much, then you are required to give at least 10%, that's His tax!
209. THE 100% IS YOUR FREE GIFT, GLADLY FORSAKING ALL FOR HIM & HIS KINGDOM! It's like His Love & His Salvation are free & His Grace is free, & He gives you 100% of all that! You are expected to freely give all: "Freely ye have received freely give". (Mt.10:8.)
210. BUT GOD EXPECTS AT LEAST THE MINIMUM REQUIRED TAX OF 10%, your tithe, 10% of your income, to go directly to His temple Services only, which is in this case, as a member of this congregation, your World Services. That is the absolute minimum that you can get by with with God! But even then, He's promised to more than bless you for it, & pour out such a blessing there will not be room enough to hold it!--100 fold! 1000%! Since you're keeping 90% of it anyhow, you're already getting nine times or nine fold as much, & He will at least give you back the 100-fold of your 10% if nothing more--1000%!
211. SO THAT'S THE WAY I LOOK AT YOUR GIVING REGARDING THE FN: WE SHOULD FROM NOW ON LIMIT IT STRICTLY TO TITHERS.--Sorry. We may put out some little "LIN" publication on the side or some portion of it for outsiders, friends, contacts, families, interested people, catacombers who don't tithe or even backsliders or enemies or whatever--even maybe the GP!--They can already get the Komix on the streets, & they pack a powerful message themselves, God bless our artists! We could publish a separate "Love Is News" Magazine with "the sincere milk of the Word," & the news of the Family & things which we think would be good for them & helpful & needed, & give it to whoever gives us any little gift of any kind.
212. SO THIS IS THE SOLUTION: TITHERS ONLY GET THE WHOLE WORKS, NO MATTER HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE THEIR TITHE MAY BE, & whether you're truly tithing or not is on your own conscience between you & God! We're not the judges & auditors, we can't go into your books & bank accounts to find out.
213. WE'RE NOT TAX INVESTIGATORS & ENFORCERS LIKE THE IRS, BUT GOD IS! (Maria: Oh, He's the enforcer, & if you lie to the Holy Spirit, you'll suffer for it!) God is certainly your tax investigator & He'll be your taxman & audit your bank accounts & your books & more thoroughly than any CPA or IRS could do! He's your official auditor, & He not only audits the figures, but He audits the thoughts & intents of your heart as well as your motives.
214. GOD WILL JUDGE YOU ACCORDING TO NOT JUST WHAT YOU GIVE OR TITHE, BUT WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT & YOUR MOTIVE in giving, & He will reward you accordingly!--Like that old story I used to tell about the penny-pinching Scotsman who was going out of the little kirk in Scotland, a rich Scotsman, a rich selfish nobleman. The little church had the custom of having the usher stand at the door with the bag as the people left, & they'd cast in their offerings as they went out the door.
215. SO THE SCOTSMAN REACHED IN HIS POCKET & PULLED OUT WHAT HE THOUGHT WAS A MERE PENNY & cast it into the bag. But just as he saw it leaving his hand, he saw to his horror that it was a gold sovereign instead of a copper penny, the same size & weight but entirely different in value, the gold sovereign being many times the value of the penny!
216. SO HE REACHED OUT QUICKLY TO SNATCH IT BACK from the bag, but the usher put his hand over the mouth of the bag & said, "No, no!--Once in, forever in!" So the rich Scotchman said, "Oh well, at least now I'll get credit for a sovereign!" But the usher replied, "No ye won't!--Ye'll only get credit for the penny!"
217. SO IF YOU HAPPEN TO ACCIDENTALLY GIVE MORE THAN YOU EXPECTED TO or wanted to, God will probably only give you credit for what you intended to give or what you wanted to give, & not for what you accidentally gave or got forced to give or might have felt you had to give just to get your Magazine.
218. HE'LL ONLY BE GIVING YOU CREDIT FOR WHAT YOU REALLY WANTED TO GIVE & intended & planned to give, & not what you merely were required to give. You probably won't even get credit for the full 10% if you don't give it willingly, cheerfully, gladly & faithfully & by faith & obedience to His Word because you love Him & are trying to obey Him & help His Work, so therefore, your motives are pure & your intent is pure & your heart is pure.
219. IF YOU ONLY TITHE THE 10% RELUCTANTLY, BEGRUDGINGLY & ONLY BECAUSE IT'S REQUIRED, it's the law & we insist on it or otherwise you wouldn't get your Magazine, & otherwise you'd give less, then you'll probably only get credit for what you would have willingly given, sad to say!
220. SO GOD IS A PRETTY SHARP TAXMAN! He'll only give you credit for what you gladly gave & what you would have willingly given & cheerfully, & not what you gave begrudgingly just because you had to! But at least He'll give you credit for obeying--& you'll get your Mag! Ha! So the Lord is pretty sharp & pretty strict, like any good Father Who loves you!
221.--AND I'LL TELL YOU, IF YOU DON'T PAY WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO, HE IS GOING TO REWARD YOU INVERSELY ACCORDINGLY, in the opposite direction, according to your little works or lack of works!--He'll reward you with all kinds of trouble & expenses & cursings instead of blessings! I've known all kinds of troubles to be-fall people that cost them many times as much as their unpaid tithe!--Accidents, illnesses, operations, losses in business, car troubles, repairs, etc. when they tried to rob God or take away even His little 10%!
222. I'VE TOLD YOU THE STORY ABOUT BROTHER HAAS WHO DECIDED HE COULDN'T GIVE HIS 10% that Sunday to the church. He knew it was not right & therefore a sin because he didn't give it. But he had borrowed the money from the tithe box to pay for something else that week, & told the Lord he would pay it back later, next week.
223. BUT INSTEAD OF THAT HE BLEW OUT A TIRE & IT COST HIM TEN TIMES AS MUCH AS THE TITHE! He soon realised that it doesn't pay to rob God or borrow from God, as you're going to lose a lot more than that if you do! So the cost of not tithing & not giving may be inversely as bad many times over what the tithe would have expected cost, just like the blessings will be conversely many times over what the actual tithe is.
224. SO YOU HAD BETTER TAKE WARNING THAT THE COST OF NOT TITHING MAY COST YOU A GREAT DEAL MORE THAN THE ACTUAL TITHE ITSELF! As we've often said, if you don't give an offering, God will take a collection! We have had so many testimonies roll in from backsliders & disobedient Family members who went back on the Lord & failed to tithe or borrowed God's tithe, or just simply cheated Him out of it & robbed Him & didn't pay it, who had so much trouble & sickness & accidents & business failures & job losses & family losses & losses of all kinds, that it cost them many times over what the tithe would have been!
225. IF YOU DON'T GIVE AN OFFERING, GOD WILL TAKE A COLLECTION! If you don't pay your tithe, God will punish you accordingly for not paying your tax to God, your tithe. There will be penalties applied for the failure to pay your taxes to the Lord, & much stricter & more sure & more fair, more just & more honest, & stricter than anything any government could apply!
226. YOU MAY NOT HAVE TO GO TO JAIL FOR NOT PAYING YOUR TITHE TO GOD, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, SOME HAVE! Some have backslidden, gone back to drugs, smuggling & other things, & landed in jail when they didn't give themselves to the Lord & pay their tithes to God! God didn't only take a collection, He also applied severe penalties!--So you will suffer for it!
227. I CAN PROMISE YOU'LL SUFFER FOR IT, BECAUSE GOD PROMISED IT IN HIS WORD that you will reap whatever you sow, & certainly if you don't even sow at all, you're not going to reap anything except troubles & penalties & curses instead of blessings! (2Cor.9:6 & Gal.6:7-9)
228. SO THAT'S GOD'S LAW OF TITHING & GIVING, FROM 10% TO 100%, WITH REWARDS FORM 1000% TO 10,000%!--And those who give nothing at all will certainly receive nothing except trouble, probably a hundred fold!
229. SO WATCH OUT THAT YOU DON'T TRY TO CHEAT OR ROB GOD BY LYING ABOUT YOUR INCOME ON YOUR MONTHLY REPORT & thereby giving less tithe than it really should be. We may not know it & can't prove it's a lie, & maybe only you know it, maybe you didn't even tell your wife how little you put on your report as to your monthly income, & thereby gave even less than she expected.
230. BUT GOD KNOWS!--AND HE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT THE TRUTH OF THE AMOUNT OUGHT TO BE & exactly what the tithe ought to be. So if you try to cheat or rob Him, I promise you God will reward you accordingly with evil rather than good!
231. HE CAN CUT DOWN THE BLESSINGS & REDUCE HIS PROTECTION & REDUCE YOUR INCOME if you claim your income is only so little & you try to rob God of His full tithe! God may just cut your income down to exactly that little or even less! If that's all you pretend that you're getting, God may see to it that that's all you get! He can have you get a pay cut in your salary or lose your job or whatever!
232. SO YOU BETTER WATCH OUT YOU DON'T TRY TO CHEAT OR ROB GOD OF HIS TITHE!--He says in Malachi 3:8: "Will a man rob God?--Yes, Ye have robbed Me in tithes & offerings!" The tithe is His flat-rate tax on all--the required 10%! Offerings & gifts are what you're to give above that if you can.
233. EVEN IF YOU FAITHFULLY PAY YOUR REQUIRED 10% JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO or you won't get the Magazine, if you don't also give, if you rob Him in offerings, gifts above your tithe which you could have given & you're able to give, if you could easily give more than your tithe but don't, God will take a collection!
234. IF YOU DON'T ALSO GIVE HIM AN OFFERING WHEN YOU CAN, HE WILL TAKE A COLLECTION WHICH WILL FAR OUTWEIGH WHAT YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN! So you'd better watch out you don't try to rob God of tithes & offerings! He says, "Ye have robbed Me of tithes & offerings"! So you'd better not try to rob God of His tithe or even a little tiny part of it!
235.--AND YOU'D CERTAINLY BETTER NOT EVEN ROB HIM OF OFFERINGS THAT YOU COULD HAVE GIVEN ABOVE THE TITHE! If you can give more than the tithe, God will expect it of you that you should freely give it.
236. IF YOU'RE ABLE TO GIVE MORE THAN A TITHE & YOU DON'T GIVE IT, GOD WILL TAKE A COLLECTION & you'll be sorry! He can collect a lot more than you should have given, & lot more than the tithe you stole! So if you rob Him either in tithes or in offerings, God will reward you accordingly with more expenses & more losses & more costs & more problems & more troubles & more illnesses & accidents & loss of income, business, jobs--God only knows how far it'll go if you keep on trying to rob God & lie to Him & cheat Him.
237. PETER SAID TO ANANIAS & SAPPHIRA, "YOU LIED TO THE HOLY SPIRIT!" In other words, You haven't lied only to us, we didn't know you were lying. As far as we knew you were telling the truth. But you lied to God, you lied to His Holy Spirit & thought you were going to get by with it.
238. YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD FOOL US, BUT YOU CAN'T FOOL GOD! While it was in your hand to give, He didn't say you had to give it all. It was yours to do with it as you pleased. But when you come in here & say you're giving so much & you're not, then you're lying, you're cheating, & this is an offence to the Holy Spirit!
239. IN THE EARLY CHURCH IT WAS CONSIDERED A SERIOUS ENOUGH OFFENCE THAT THEY WERE STRUCK DEAD ON THE SPOT!--For pretending to give so much to God when they weren't doing it! If you pretend on your report that you're giving 10% but you're not giving 10%, watch out!
240. WATCH OUT FOR THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD & THE COLLECTIONS OF GOD IF YOU LIE TO US ON THAT MONTHLY REPORT by claiming you're giving 10% when you're not! God is going to more than tax you then, He's going to more than collect! He's going to take back a whole lot more & you're going to lose a lot more than what you cheated Him out of, I warn you!
241. SO YOU'D BETTER BE HONEST ON YOUR REPORTS ABOUT THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF YOUR INCOME whatever it is, whether it's in cash or otherwise, & you'd better be honest as to the correct amount of your tithe, or God is really going to clamp down on you with costs & penalties & take collections of a lot more than you robbed Him of!
242. THAT'S THE WAY GOD IS, THAT'S THE WAY HIS PUNISHMENTS ARE, THEY ARE JUST & ACCURATE & FAIR! You don't just get by with having to repay only what little you robbed Him of, but the Old Testament Law was that you had to give back at least four times as much if you over-charged somebody or you cheated or stole something! If you stole one oxen, you had to give back four oxen!--Four-fold, that was the penalty! (2Sam. 12:6 & Lk. 19:8.)
243. SO IF YOU CHEAT GOD OF A LITTLE OR A LOT OF HIS TITHE, HE MAY JUST APPLY THE GOOD OLD TESTAMENT MOSAIC LAW OF FOUR-FOLD REPAYMENT! Since you're just a tither & you want to live under the old Mosaic Law like the Jews & do nothing but tithe & only give the minimum of 10% & no extra offerings, He may enforce the Mosaic Law on you if you try to cheat Him out of any part of that!
244. HE MAY CHARGE YOU FOUR TIMES AS MUCH by some kind of an economic or spiritual or physical or material loss, some accident, sickness, or God only knows what! Worse yet, you'll suffer a loss of blessing on your ministry! You can't honestly win souls or witness well anymore because you know you're a liar & a cheat & a robber of God! Think of it!
245. SO WATCH OUT HE DOESN'T APPLY HIS 400% RULE ON YOU, that if you try to rob Him, He will collect back four times as much as a penalty! So you had better be sure that that amount that you put on your report as a tither is really the total amount of all your income & that is really your total 10% tithe. Because if you do put it on your report & you give less than 10% of it, we'll certainly know you're not tithing!
246. THAT'S WHY WE ASK YOU TO PUT ON YOUR REPORT THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF YOUR INCOME, so we'll know if the amount of money you're sending is actually the total tithe. That's pretty easy to figure, only 10%. God made it very simple. You've got ten fingers, & if you subtract one you know you've got nine left.
247. THE DIGITALS OF THE ARABIC NUMERIC SYSTEM HAVE MADE IT VERY EASY TO FIGURE OUT 10% OF THE WHOLE.--10% is almost the easiest per cent there is to figure, & that's what God requires, that's the minimum.--If you don't know how to do it, just strike off the last digit of your income, & that usually leaves about 10%.
248. BUT HE ALSO EXPECTS GIFTS ABOVE THAT IF YOU CAN GIVE THEM, & if you try to cheat Him not only on the minimum 10% tithe but also gifts above that you could have given, God is going to take a collection to pay Him back of at least four times as much, 400%, four times as much as you stole!--That's the Law! So watch out that you don't try to rob God or Cheat Him out of His own or lie to Him or us about how much it should be!
249. YOU HAD BETTER BE HONEST ABOUT THAT TITHE & THOSE GIFTS, & you had better be honest about that income figure & make sure that that income is honest & true & not a lie, & not try to deceive God & cheat Him & rob Him, or you'll not get away with it! (We keep confidential!)
250. SO IF YOU DON'T GIVE YOUR FULL TITHE LIKE IT OUGHT TO BE, & YOU LIE ABOUT YOUR INCOME & YOUR TITHE BOTH, THAT MAKES TWO LIES, & you're cheating both God & us, & you're robbing both of us! So that's a double crime, & God'll probably at least double the penalty! He may not only quadruple it according to His Word, but it may cost you eight times as much!--Four times what you robbed us of, & four times as much as you robbed God of!
251. SO YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT & NOT TRY TO LIE ABOUT YOUR INCOME & THE TRUE AMOUNT OF YOUR TITHE! And don't try to cheat us or God our of what you should have given above it in gifts & offerings! Now, the gifts & the offerings above your tithe do not necessarily have to go through us. You certainly may give them to us, & we will be very happy & grateful to receive them & will invest them in God's Work wherever we feel they are most needed.
252. BUT YOU MAY GIVE THE GIFTS & THE OFFERINGS ABOVE THE TITHE ELSEWHERE IF YOU PREFER. If you receive an inheritance for example, you're required as Members of this Family to give to your Temple, World Services, 10% of that inheritance, that God expects & will require it of you, & you'll suffer for it if you don't tithe it.
253. THE TITHE IS NOT A GIFT, IT'S A TAX, GOD'S TAX, GOD'S 10%! You have to pay your 10% tax to His kingdom, to the governmental authority of the part to which you belong, the Temple of our Family, World Services--nowhere else! You can't get by with giving it to someplace else & say, "Well, I gave it to God, but I gave it someplace else."
254. THE TITHE GOES TO YOUR TEMPLE, WS, His modern spiritual Temple & present-day governmental authority of His Church, which in the Family is World Services.
255. BUT YOU MAY GIVE YOUR GIFTS & OFFERINGS WHEREVER YOU CHOOSE, to any worthy cause or missionaries or needy field or project that you feel worthy & needful of, but it certainly ought to be in the Family! That's according to your choice, you will have done your obligation as far as God's concerned if it's really a worthy project & a missionary deserving of the gift, really God's Work. God will give you credit for gifts that you have given to Him & His Work, even if they didn't go through us.
256. --BUT YOUR TITHE MUST COME TO WS--IF YOU WANT OUR MAG & NOT SOMEBODY ELSE'S! However, if you choose to give also through us, of course we will be grateful to be able to reinvest it for you in His Service somewhere where it's needed. You can be sure that we keep a pretty close tab on the Worldwide Work & its needs & its fields & its missionaries.
257. WE GET THOUSANDS OF REPORTS FROM THOUSANDS OF MISSIONARIES & HUNDREDS OF FIELDS & MANY NEEDY PROJECTS AROUND THE WORLD, & as any good investment broker, we are more knowledgeable & more aware of more fields & worthy investments than you are, although in some cases you may be closer to some particular field or missionary or need or project that you know of personally & have personal contact with & interest in that you know is needy & worthy, & therefore wish to give personally yourself directly to them, if it's a gift above your tithe.
258. BUT YOUR TITHE, ACCORDING TO GOD'S WORD, MUST COME TO US, YOUR SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP, YOUR MODERN TEMPLE, WORLD SERVICES & its many Family Temple ministries. Your gifts above that may also come to us as your investment brokers for the Lord, to put them where we feel they're going to get the best dividends, the best returns, the best interest & accomplish the most, & where it's most needed (or you can specify)--& God will reward you accordingly.
259. GOD HAS A PERFECT SYSTEM OF REWARDS, DIVIDENDS, INTERESTS, REPAYMENTS ETC., EXACTLY 100-FOLD!--From 1000% to 10,000%, depending on whether you invest 10% or 100%! God doesn't fiddle around with 3%, 6%, 10% or 12% or 15% like the banks, or even 20% or 30% or 40% or 50% like some other risky investments. He's really the pay-off!--And a bigger payer-offer than any! He really gives you back a mint for you investment!
260. GOD IS NO PIKER! HE'S NO SKIN-FLINT! HE'S NOT CHINTZY! When you give to God, He will give you back much more than you gave, not a little tiny fraction of a few percentage points like the selfish banks & brokers! But He'll give you back many times over! Even if you give only 10%, He'll give you back 1000%--100-fold! If you give 100%, Jesus Himself specifically promised He'll give you back 10,000%, a hundred fold! So praise God! That's how we feel about it & that's God's Law of tithing & giving & where it's supposed to go & how much is supposed to go, whether it be cash or stocks or bonds or real estate or jewelry or foodstuffs or free rent or whatever it may be.
261. GOD REQUIRES 10% TITHE FOR HIS WS TEMPLE MINISTRIES, & EXPECTS GIFTS ABOVE THAT IF YOU'RE ABLE, & 100% IF YOU CAN!--And God will more than reward you & repay you many times over, from 1000% to 10,000%!
262. BUT LET ME WARN YOU THAT IF YOU TRY TO CHEAT HIM OR LIE TO HIM OR ROB HIM OR US of what is His minimum 10% requirement or lie about your income & don't give the full amount of your full tithe, & you try to cheat us & God & His Work, let me tell you, He will repay you for that also many times over!
263. IT'S GOING TO COST YOU MUCH MORE THAN YOU CHEATED US OF OR ROBBED GOD OF, FOR GOD WILL TAKE A FOUR-FOLD COLLECTION! So you had better watch out that you don't falsify those income reports & your income tax to God, your 10% tithe! You had better watch out that you don't try to lie to us or to God & His Holy Spirit & try to cheat us or rob God, or God will see to it that you suffer for it many times over the amount of the offence!
264. THAT'S GOD'S JUSTICE! But you say, "That's awfully harsh, that's awfully severe, like the old Mosaic Law!" Well, apparently God thought the old Mosaic Law was just & right. If you're going to steal something, you ought to have to pay back more than you stole as a punishment!
265. IF YOU ONLY HAVE TO RETURN IT, THAT'S NO PENALTY!--You oughtta have to pay an extra penalty above what you stole, & God's Law says it's 400%!--Four times as much!--Four-fold! So come on Family!--Cough up all those back taxes or tithes & gifts you stole from God!--Four-fold!--Ha!--That'll be the day!
266. BUT I REALLY BELIEVE THIS LETTER WAS INSPIRED because I really looked to the Lord for the answers. You can't beat the Bible!--Amen?--So put up or shut up!--Or pay up or I'll shut up! Fair deal?--If you don't wanna hear anymore of this from me, just forget it!
267. --BUT YOU'LL SURE HEAR FROM GOD!--Or maybe He's tireda talkin' &'ll just start clobberin'! If so, I'd hate to be in your shoes if His taxes are unpaid! God help us!--You know, all of a sudden that 10% don't look so big after all, does it?--Ha! God bless & keep you tithing & giving your all for Jesus! I love you!--Dear Tired Ol' Dad!
268. P.S.--I GUESS THIS IS THE LONGEST LETTER I EVER WROTE & the most you ever heard me say about giving, but I sure hope it does the job--for your sake & ours too! I'd hate to have to say it again!--Ha!--You'd hate to hear too, now, wouldn't you? GBY! ILY!--Please obey & get those 1000% to 10,000% blessings!--WOW!--You can't beat that!--Uh oh!--Here I go again!--Somebody stop me!--Thanks, Lord!--Ahhhhhhhh!--Peace at last! (Hey!--Didja hear me? Do you want the books or don'tcha? Huh!--Hope so! Send it today!)--love,--Dad.
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
