HomeARC ML 1744
PROPHECIES! DO 1744 2/84--The Other Side of the Coin!
1. WE HAD SOME EARLY FALSE PROPHECIES AS FAR BACK AS THE CLUB, Miguel (Abraham) prophesying against Eve & Deborah. Maybe he was right but it was a bit early. He was prophesying against Mother Eve & Deborah, who were taking quite a leadership role sometimes, but the trouble was he was prophesying against women in general--that they should not have any part in public ministry. He was prophesying, "Let the women keep silence in the church!" (1Cor.14:34) Some of our best prophets were amongst them--Becky & Rachel & Tabitha. So he was completely out of order, really. And of course neither Mother Eve nor Deborah were prophesying or prophets, but because they were leaders, he prophesied against them, leaders in the Club or Church.
2. NOW THAT'S WHAT I HAD TO REBUKE JAMES BALLISTER FOR. What was the name of that little town where Kemper's Pennsylvania Bible College was in Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh--it begins with a "G" is all I can remember--in that little chapel they let us use for meetings. He began prophesying against Deborah. Some of those men apparently really did hate Deborah because she was such a leader. She was sometimes rather cruel, unfair & overbearing.
3. SO WHO KNOWS, MAYBE HE WAS RIGHT! But at least I didn't think it helped our unity any for him to be prophesying against leadership, so I had to put a stop to it. (Maria: It was your place, if you wanted to prophesy against them, that was all right, but the others shouldn't have been exercising themselves in matters too high for them.) Yes, then some of the other young prophets began to follow his example, the young fellow, what was his name? (Ralph) He began to prophesy too, he was quite a prophet, against Deborah & leadership etc., & look how they eventually split off anyhow & went back. So apparently it wasn't just Deborah, but she was a pretty good excuse, a pretty good target. (Maria: They didn't like women in general doing any public ministry--look what they did with their wives & squelched them. They didn't like them having any kind of public ministry.)
4. SO WE HAD SOME PRETTY EARLY FALSE PROPHETS that I had to squelch for the sake of unity, & if for nothing else, their prophecies were pretty prejudiced, they were obviously vindictive & prejudiced, so as you may recall, I ruled with a pretty iron hand, very heavy-handed, & I squelched them in a hurry & banished them from the public assembly until I had them properly disciplined & punished & they were repentant. I think in that case James Ballister never repented, he just left, didn't he? Well, eventually he left with a team & went back to California & got in trouble in San Francisco, & they all got thrown in jail. He led a bunch of rebels & they all got thrown in jail for disturbing a big church in San Francisco, & then they wanted us to help them get out. And they're virtually all backsliders, rebels that rebelled against us & followed James Ballister & Happy (Joab).
5. AND JOEL STARTED COMING OUT ABOUT THAT TIME. At first in the early days at the Club & particularly at TSC, Joel had some very good prophecies. I think he was on the right track in those days, but then he began getting off on some of these odd Scriptural interpretations & prophecies that had weird meanings & every little Scripture had hidden meanings--almost like that numerology stuff. So I began to get leery, but he didn't seem to blossom until after you & I left for Europe & he was left there at the Camp. I don't know just what happened because, of course, Deborah & Jethro had absolutely no discernment & I don't think they had any spiritual gifts of any kind, if they even had the Holy Spirit! So maybe they just let him rattle on, you know? Because apparently Joel got quite a following & they eventually split off & went their way back to California also.
6. SO THAT'S THE TROUBLE WITH LETTING SOME OF THOSE GUYS GO ON without somebody to really prayerfully judge, who really has wisdom, knowledge, discernment or something. I was just bringing out that in those Early Days it was a pretty serious threat that the Enemy would mislead, misguide & steer some astray by false prophets. (Maria: So maybe it was good that there wasn't too much prophecy in recent years.) Because we had a lot of prophecies in those days, a lot of prophetic sessions etc.
7. EVERY SESSION AFTER MY CLASSES AT HUNTINGTON BEACH WE'D HAVE A PRAYER SESSION where we'd stand in a circle holding hands praising the Lord, & we'd always have several prophecies, beautiful ones, good ones in the very earliest days, until Miguel began to get a little off the track. I reprimanded him sternly, & that was when he finally stole Becky away from us, she was misled. She was one of our most beautiful prophetesses, she was really a beautiful prophetess, she had some beautiful prophecies, but I guess she was infatuated or fascinated with Miguel, so I finally let them get betrothed & sent them off on a team to somewhere, Miami or somewhere, to carry the Revolution there because they wanted to go, they were anxious to go. He wanted to go somewhere else & get away where he could be his own boss. He didn't want me being his boss either.
8. WELL, YOU SEE WHAT FINALLY HAPPENED TO HIM! Up at Laurentide I had to squelch him for some false prophecies, remember?--All of a sudden he was Abraham & I was nothing but Moses, ha! But he was the great Patriarch, Abraham, & even Fred laughed at that one! (Maria: Look at how many of our early disciples backslid! The strong ones we started out with at Huntington Beach, so many of them backslid, I wonder why that was?) The Lord kept thinning out the ranks, just keeping those that He could trust & who would be faithful. (Maria: They were so strong & at first they went through so much, they really went through so much, all the persecution & difficulties.)
9. WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT THE GALATIANS, (GAL.3:1,4), "O FOOLISH GALATIANS, HAVE YE SUFFERED SO MANY THINGS IN VAIN?" Apparently they had been through a lot & still got led astray. Look at Josh & Caleb, some of the top leaders! (Maria: Yes, some of the strong ones.) And Deborah of course, all she wanted was leadership, she never was very spiritual. Those days took a strong mind & a strong will & a tough leader, & that's what she liked. Well, there was a time for that, when we had to have some leadership, but it seemed like some people just had their day, you know?--Here today & gone tomorrow.
10. SOME STUCK FOR QUITE AWHILE BUT EVENTUALLY WENT BACK. Miguel stuck even after he suffered several reproofs & rebukes for false prophecies. Remember, he went out & started some kind of a thing in Montreal, our outreach there, & he was leading all those people astray there on some kind of foolish sexual business or something. They held all their meetings nude & it was compulsory. (Maria: It must have been pretty cold!) Well, in the Tropix there is a pretty good reason for it, but in the bitter winter of Canada & freezing cold weather where they had to have a lot of heat, that was no place to go running around naked! Ha!
11. AND HE WAS TOUGH! I MEAN HE WAS A HARD MAN & A HARD CRUEL LEADER, & he commanded them to take their clothes off immediately, even brand-new babes, girls coming in for the first time--that was one of his stiffest main requirements for meetings, they all had to take their clothes off, every stitch! And some of them just couldn't take it, you know, & they lost some potentially good disciples. And when I heard about it I really blew up! I demoted him & took him off from that mission there in Montreal & put somebody else in charge. Well then, finally he went to Europe.
12. IT'S FUNNY, MIGUEL TOOK THE REBUKES & THE REPROOFS & THE DISCIPLINES WELL FOR AWHILE, from the Club to the earliest days in Europe all the way to Paris. It must have been two to three years before finally in Paris he got cocky again. He always went some place where he could be the boss & try to run things, yet he didn't have the practical common sense & good sense, genuine leadership ability to really guide a Colony or a group, & that was a pretty big one there in Paris! They had over a hundred people, a very huge blob, & because he was one of the outstanding musicians & singers he had a lot of influence & he had gotten too cocky, I remember, going against the Letters & orders & things.
13. THEN WHEN I HEARD THAT HE WAS MISTREATING BECKY, THAT WAS IT, THAT WAS THE LAST! I literally fired him & sent for Becky, remember, when we were in Horsmundon (near London). Becky & Josh came there. (Maria: Weren't they all at Horsmundon?) Oh yes, Miguel was there! Yes, that's right. We first sent for both of them & I was trying to get him straightened out at that time. But then when they went back to Paris, he was even worse & mistreating Becky & all kinds of horrible things, tales began to come out. So I finally fired him from whatever job he had, remember?--And summoned her to come join us at Horsmundon again, of all things, we must have been there that long. Was it Horsmundon? No, it was Downham, it was that much later. It must have been a few months later. They were both at Horsmundon.
14. THEN WHAT HAPPENED? BUT IT WAS AT HORSMUNDON THAT I FIRST FUCKED HER! Oh, I think he & Josh left or something. Faithy was there too with Josh at that council we had, one of our first foreign councils. (Maria: I think Ho & Esther were too.) Yes, they were there too when we had that council meeting at Horsmundon. But then Becky stayed & we became one & she burst forth with terrific tongues! I remember that night when I was making love with her I was afraid the neighbours were going to hear! Remember? She yelled so loud that it so distracted me & concerned me that I couldn't hardly interpret! The Lord was saying something, something very forceful anyhow. She was quite in love with me, so then when we heard later that he was mistreating her, I sent for her. In Downham she was our housekeeper & cook & we all lived together & took turns loving.
15. (MARIA: WE STARTED OUT BY TALKING ABOUT FALSE PROPHETS. The Family here has been saying how they hadn't exercised that gift for so many years & they'd been fearful of it & afraid that they had to stop & judge every prophecy.) Yes, I was bringing out how there was quite a danger of false prophecies & false prophets in the early days when the Devil tried to throw us a mickey & lead some astray & did! Quite a few of them left us & took split-off people with them, good people. (Maria: And that's when you wrote those Letters.) (See No.244) Yes, & that's when I wrote those Letters to be careful about false prophecy & false prophets.
16. APPARENTLY THEY SWUNG TO THE OPPOSITE EXTREME THEN. Of course, I'm sure that Deborah & Jethro would have really read those Letters & used them, because some of their main threats were people with deep spiritual gifts & prophecies from real prophets, true prophecies which challenged their leadership, see? So I'm sure they would have, & the whole Chain crowd squelched the true prophets & prophecies which questioned their leadership in any way. And that's probably when that squelching really began, & they used those Letters as an excuse.
17. ALSO THERE WAS DAVID HOYT, he was demon-possessed apparently, & he began having those fits & false prophecies etc. in London through jealousy because he wanted to be a big-shot leader, didn't want to work under Ho etc. Well, Ho wasn't too easy to work under sometimes, but I don't think he was justified in splitting off like he did. It was obvious that he was wrongly jealous of leadership, because he went straight into the arms of our enemies & told tales against us & fought us. So there's another false prophet that was causing trouble.
18. BUT APPARENTLY THE WHOLE CHAIN FINALLY DECIDED TO PRETTY MUCH SQUELCH ALL PROPHECY. They'd rather have had no fire than wild fire, false fire or especially even true fire that happened to go contrary to what they were doing or saying. The false prophets & prophecies were a genuine threat in the very earliest days when I was in direct command. Later, when the Chain was in command even true prophets & true prophecies were a direct threat to their command & leadership. So between my squelching the false prophets & prophecies, & the Chain squelching the true prophets & true prophecies, virtually all prophecy got squelched!
19. RACHEL, I UNDERSTAND, EVEN USED PROPHECIES TO CONFIRM & ESTABLISH & SHOW UP HER LEADERSHIP as late as some of those places in Italy, remember? They say she was still prophesying long prophecies & stuff to substantiate her leadership even after she had already gone awry with all that fancy high-falutin' high society fancy dress & jewelry, & trying to live off the scum or cream, so-called, of society & with a few still prophesying to confirm her leadership.--I think probably to make sure she kept control over Emanuele who had a lot of common sense & business sense, & to whom all that wealth & riches of his former society didn't even appeal, that's why he had left it & found the Lord. But it really sucked Rachel in & apparently she used her so-called "spiritual gifts or talents" to advantage to put him down & keep herself up, & obviously they certainly must not have been genuine or she certainly went off the deep end somehow because she sure did!
20. SO THERE WERE THOSE PROBLEMS. FALSE PROPHETS WERE ALSO A THREAT TO THE TRUE LEADERSHIP, ME! The true prophets were a threat to the bad leadership, the Chain! So eventually almost all prophecy got squelched except amongst you & me, you & I were the only little true prophets who were allowed to operate because we were all by ourselves with nobody to stop us! (Maria: But like you say, that must have been the Lord. The Lord used that to work together for good.)
21. YES, IT TOOK THE LETTERS TO KEEP THEM ON THE RIGHT TRACK to make sure they got their leadership only from one source. (Maria: Now we have all the written Word, & people can't go so easily astray because every one knows.) Everything has been talked about & everything has been described, all the rules & laws & guidance lines have been laid down & they know what's right & what's wrong--just like the Bible, so they can't very well get away from it. (Maria: It's not so hard to judge. They don't have to be so fearful about judging it, because they have the guidelines in the Letters.)
22. MAYBE THAT'S WHY FOR YEARS THERE WAS SO LITTLE PROPHECY IN THE CHURCH AFTER THE EARLY DAYS OF THE EARLY CHURCHES. Once they had the Scripture & the Bible & Paul's letters & all those things, they had very good sound guidelines to go by & they didn't need quite so much visible, oral, audible manifestations & so they sort of fell back on the Bible to guide them rather than immediate prophets & prophecies etc. (Maria: Like the Letters are the leaders now.) Yes, the Bible really became the leadership or the Guidebook. They didn't need so many prophecies & prophets, so much current Word, because there was always that danger of being misled by false prophets & prophecies, so the Bible became the standard & the Guidebook, the Letters. In a way that's what happened to us.
23. I DON'T KNOW JUST EXACTLY WHAT THIS BIRTHDAY OUTBREAK IS GOING TO BRING AMONGST THE FAMILY IN GENERAL. There's going to be an outcropping again of the danger of too much prophecy & possibly false prophets & false prophecies, because it sort of opens the door, because whenever you've got fire you're always going to have some wild fire! You open the door for not only the Holy Spirit but you open the door for freedom, so much freedom that also the Enemy always tries to get in with some wild fire, so you really have to watch it. So they're still going to have to be careful & very prayerful.
24. AND FRANKLY, THEY DON'T ALWAYS NEED SO MUCH PROPHECY & MANIFESTATIONS SO MUCH ANYMORE, THEY'VE GOT THE LETTERS & THE GUIDANCE OF THE WORD, the written recorded settled guaranteed Word to go by, & except for current revelations that they may need, current guidance in a specific local situation, affecting them locally, things they have to know or guidance they have to have, there really isn't a great deal of need for any outstanding leading prophets to prophesy any World-shaking events, as they've already been prophesied. So they'll still have to be very prayerful & careful & keep a close watch on going haywire or overboard or off the deep end on gifts of the Spirit & prophecies etc. Although, of course, if they're too careful they'll miss some beautiful, wonderful things like we had on the Birthday night!
25. (MARIA: BUT THE LORD USUALLY BRINGS THE OUTSTANDING REVELATIONS THROUGH YOU, THROUGH THE LETTERS & through you.) Well, that's what I used to tell them. I used to tell some of those false prophets, James Ballister & Joel & some of those, "If the Lord wanted to make that big a new revelation, He'd have told me first because I'm your ordained prophet & your leader." Those false prophets were always going off the track on some queer tangent, some weird doctrine or interpretation, something really weirdo & ridiculous, completely out of line, the Devil trying to steer people off the track & give them a bum steer!
26. SO YOU JUST HAVE TO BE REALLY REALLY DEEP IN THE SPIRIT & HAVE GOOD DISCERNMENT & STRONG LEADERSHIP TO KEEP FALSE PROPHETS & PROPHECIES FROM CROPPING UP & TAKING OVER. They can crop up occasionally, but if it's some dumb ignorant person, you just need to sort of gently reprove & guide them the right direction. I had to kind of gently put some people down because I knew they were just sort of dumb & a little misguided, but who weren't really all that wayward in heart. It was more mistakes of the mind rather than the heart. But it is even through some of those people that problems & troubles can come, because they're that easily mistaken, even if it is a mistake of the head. They can be pretty easily misled of the Devil.
27. TAKE FOR INSTANCE SAMSON OF SAMSON & ARA, LOOK HOW FAR OFF HE GOT! After years of more or less reproof, rebuke & cautioning, personal letters & everybody else warning him, he finally went so far he went plumb out of his mind, let the Devil take over! And I believe, I'm firmly convinced that it is because he compromised with his father for gain, for money. Their fathers promised to support them if they'd desert us & have nothing to do with us, & apparently they did, because Samson wanted to keep his connection with us completely secret. Although he was still TRFing & communicating & getting lit & everything, they didn't want anybody to know it, yet they stayed there & they must have had some income.
28. BOTH OF THEIR FATHERS ARE MILLIONAIRES! Her father worked for Sotheby's, the famous auction house, one of the two richest, biggest auction houses of the World! The other is Christie's, isn't it?--Both in London, auction houses for antiques & that sort of thing, & they even had gold coins & whatnot. That was her father. His father was a land-rich, property-rich multi-millionaire! Anyhow, they both offered to support them if they'd stay away from us. Her father was not as antagonistic as was Samson's father. Frampton was really a bitter bitter enemy & he still is to this day, from the last I heard. He probably blames Samson's insanity on us, of course, that we led him astray & so he finally went crazy, instead of on himself & his fiendish policies & his enmity & the Devil!--Frampton.
29. BUT POOR SAMSON, HE OBVIOUSLY KEPT ON GOING THE WRONG DIRECTION IN SPITE OF MANY WARNINGS & admonitions & personal Letters from me & open rebukes before the whole Family & personal warnings from others & finally his own wife, until he refused to listen to anybody but his little devil, or maybe it was a big devil, & completely went off his rocker, sad to say!
30. SO THERE IS ALWAYS THAT DANGER WHEN YOU ALLOW FREEDOM IN THE SPIRIT. There is always the danger that evil spirits will get in if there is not a good strong, deep, discerning, knowledgeable, wise leader in control who runs things with a firm hand, strong leadership. A weak leader can easily be brushed aside by a strong false prophet who can virtually take over & run things just through prophecy, & we had that happen too.--When the appointed leadership didn't take a strong hand & was not firm & wasn't strong enough to buck a strong false prophet, a weak leader was not strong enough to put down a false prophet.
31. SO THERE IS ALWAYS THAT OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN! But thank the Lord, we haven't had to have all that much manifestation of the various gifts in our own particular Homes & meetings because we have it all the time through what the Lord gives me & the Letters & what He's already given. (Maria: That's right! So for the whole Family it is the same.) It keeps them busy just reading what the Lord is giving virtually daily through the one genuine true & trusted Prophet that they can really be sure of. (Maria: That goes for the whole Family too, the same, they have you & they have the Letters.)
32. BUT WEAK LEADERSHIP WILL ALWAYS HAVE TO WATCH OUT FOR STRONG FALSE PROPHETS & FALSE PROPHECIES, because the Devil knows where you're weak & where people are weak, leaders who are weak & where he can try to muscle in & muscle them out, even if the weak leadership is true, good & honest leadership & loyal, faithful & all that. If they are not strong spiritually, a strong powerful prophet can prophesy his way into leadership in the meetings & muscle the other poor guy right out! Then he starts leading the meetings with his or her prophecies & finally begins to lead the whole outfit just through his prophecies! Now if he is a genuine prophet, a true prophet & they're true prophecies & there is a very weak leader who really doesn't deserve leadership, the true prophet could easily take over through genuine prophecy & strong leadership, true leadership. So the problem has many facets--other sides to the coin!
33. (MARIA: BUT IN OUR FAMILY YOU DON'T REALLY NEED THAT, BECAUSE AGAIN THEY HAVE THE LETTERS.) That's one reason we've been able to keep them straight, at least the ones we have left, which is only a fraction of as many as we have had who have come & gone, who couldn't take it. It's because we've kept a tight grip, a strong hand & very rigid rules & insisted they obey & follow the laws of Moses, which is what they used to call me. Apparently now the David has sort of come to the fore. There was the day for Moses, but now David has pretty much taken over, & David's rule was certainly an improvement on Moses', that's for sure, even in the Bible! Praise the Lord! Thank You Lord!
34. FOR AWHILE THERE I ALSO HAD TO TEACH LIKE PAUL, THE APOSTLE, lay down all the rules & laws & keep them straight regarding spiritual things & gifts & operations, & then the Lord began to give me revelations sort of like Daniel & John, who taught us Heaven & all! So I've had a lotta help from my friends, all of them, God bless them!
35. BUT THOSE ARE SOME OF THE PROS & CONS & DISADVANTAGES OF MANIFESTATIONS OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS IN THE ASSEMBLY OF THE SAINTS. This is why the Alliance went the other direction, because there got to be so much in Pentecost that was false & misleading & was not genuine, false prophets, over-emphasis on tongues & the supernatural, so that they went far out on a lot of false doctrines & false practices & even to the point of the final false doctrine of all!: Tongues became so important to them that as far as they were concerned, if you didn't have the gift of tongues you didn't have the Holy Spirit, period! They even put that into their Charter & their incorporation principles & into their doctrinal laws--their actual quote is that "tongues is the initial manifestation of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit!" In other words, it had to be first & foremost! They said it was the initial manifestation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In other words, if you didn't have tongues, you didn't have anything!
36. WELL, FOR YEARS I HAD OTHER GIFTS, HAD THE SPIRIT BEFORE I EVER GOT TONGUES! (Maria: Maybe that's why the Lord did it, to prove it through you. Because otherwise most people do get tongues & it does look like it would be so, because it's one of the easiest & simplest gifts & it seems like it would usually be the initial one.) Yes, I would almost say it's the most frequent, so it's almost no wonder that they generally accepted that false rule or interpretation that tongues was "the initial physical evidence of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit", which they wrote into their constitution & everything.--And if you didn't speak in tongues they said you didn't have the Baptism.
37. WHEREAS, I RECEIVED THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT I KNOW WHEN I WAS 19, WITH THAT LITTLE SYRIAN MISSIONARY LADY! Think of that!--In Miami, isn't that something! A little old-fashioned old lady who had been a missionary to Syria for years came to our church dressed in the native costume & she showed how they drank wine from those bottles. I'll never forget that & a few other things, how they could pour wine & squirt it in their mouth without putting their mouth on the bottle! And she just simply asked us young people to come down to the altar & pray for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, if we didn't have it or weren't sure we had it, & laid hands on each one & we received the Baptism!
38. WELL, NOW THE LORD SAID I WAS FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT FROM MY MOTHER'S WOMB, SO I ALREADY HAD THE SPIRIT. How I was filled, I don't know. But maybe I didn't have what they called the Baptism, but I did feel, after that prayer & her hands on my head, a much increased anointing of power, particularly a desire to study the Word & to witness, which of course are good indications. But I went then for 30 years or more without the gift of tongues! Whereas, I had every other gift of the Spirit manifested in my ministry, particularly after we began the Family!
39. BUT I RAN THE MEETINGS AT THE CLUB ETC. & OVERSAW THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE GIFTS & TONGUES & INTERPRETATIONS & PROPHECIES & EVERYTHING WITHOUT HAVING THOSE PARTICULAR GIFTS AT ALL! But I freely allowed them, encouraged them & governed them & judged them with the God-given gifts of wisdom & knowledge & discernment that I already had, & the faith He had given me. I was no miracle worker, I didn't have any of the outstanding supernatural visible miraculous gifts that Pentecostals love so much, & they are wonderful to see & observe & enjoy, but they are not always the most essential gifts for leadership.
40. JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN HAVE GIFTS OF HEALING & DO MIRACLES & SPEAK IN TONGUES OR EVEN INTERPRET & PROPHESY DOESN'T NECESSARILY GIVE YOU THE WISDOM, THE DISCERNMENT & THE FAITH & THE KNOWLEDGE WHICH YOU NEED FOR LEADERSHIP!--All those I had, & that's why we're where we're at, thank the Lord! God had given me those gifts & helped me to guide the Family through hard times & persecution & rough spots, until finally apparently He figured He could trust me with a few more visible gifts such as tongues & interpretation & prophecy, which came a couple of years after we started the Family in Huntington Beach. Tongues didn't come till we were at TSC, & interpretation didn't come until I was with you, really, when we were really joined together, & the prophecy didn't really come real strong until we got to Laurentide, where it was the strongest.
41. (MARIA: BUT TONGUES ISN'T EVEN NECESSARY. YOU CAN GET PROPHECIES & INTERPRETATIONS WITHOUT TONGUES AT ALL!) Well, tongues is good for the edifying of your own spirit. It is a miraculous manifestation even to yourself. It's a wonderful freedom! It's wonderful to just get lost in the Spirit! In a session like we had the other night, I could just roll on in tongues almost all night & be wonderfully edified in my own spirit without getting much in my head, ha! (Maria: I mean it's great, but look how you got along so well without it before you ever had it.) But it is so much more important for the edification of the body, just like the Apostle Paul says, that there be interpretation & prophecies & things that people can understand & will teach them & edify them so that they learn something, rather than sort of just rolling on & on in the spiritual manifestation of tongues! (1Cor.14:12-19)
42. BUT IF YOU'LL NOTICE, NEARLY ALL TONGUES THAT I HAVE OUTSIDE OF PRAISE OR PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT ARE USUALLY MESSAGES! They are usually messages & they come with interpretation, & we've had much of our messages from the Lord that way, as well as direct prophecy. And so that Birthday night session began with me praying & praising the Lord in tongues & then messages came in tongues & I refused to give the interpretation.
43. THE LORD, BY THE SPIRIT, LED ME TO REFUSE TO GIVE INTERPRETATIONS, TO TRY TO BRING THE FAMILY OUT & STIR UP THE GIFTS THAT WERE IN THEM, & for confirmation to them themselves to encourage them, to use their gifts & be used of the Lord & to give them faith to use their gifts & to really encourage & exercise their gifts in the Spirit in the body, in the assembly of the Saints, & I think it was an inspiration & encouragement to them all because I sort of whipped them along!
44. AS IT STARTED OUT, A FEW OF THEM WERE ALMOST AS SLOW AS WINTER MOLASSES!--AND I HAD TO USE THE OXGOAD & THE WHIP TO MAKE THEM MOVE, BUT THEY FINALLY MOVED, THANK THE LORD! (Maria: The only reason a lot of them gave anything was because you said not to be left out, you said, "You've all got to participate", & so that's the only reason I even gave anything. I was the last one. I thought otherwise I'd be a bad sample.) That would have been terrible, Honey, if you hadn't obeyed. I mean it was a matter of obedience. I made it a matter of obedience, so that they had to, they had to come out. (Maria: Yes! Because I figured, well, we've had so much tongues here already, & that's the only gift I have, so why should I give it?)
45. BUT YOU GET BEAUTIFUL MESSAGES IN TONGUES, SEE? YOURS CAME OUT LOUD & CLEAR & RINGING & BEAUTIFUL & THERE WAS A BEAUTIFUL INTERPRETATION! Now I tried to get--at first I think I did, as I recall, I can't remember exactly--I tried to get others to give the interpretation, but I don't know, they seemed to be afraid to, either that or the Lord was forcing my hand, making me be your chief interpreter, which He has done for years, of course, & I guess it was only fitting in a way in the Lord's protocol of priority & seniority, that the King should interpret the Queen's message. Well, at least that's what He did that night, & it worked out fine!
46. WE GOT SOME GOOD MESSAGES, GOOD INTERPRETATIONS & A LOT OF DIRECT PROPHECY! It began with tongues, went into interpretation & finally wound up with direct prophecies where the Lord didn't have to fiddle with the tongues anymore, that's His intermediary system. Then He came out with flat-out , straight-out prophecies in our own language. And it was wonderful, it was inspiring, it was thrilling, it was encouraging, it was edifying, informative & very satisfying in the Spirit!
47. EVERYBODY HAD BEEN WANTING SOMETHING FROM THE LORD ON MY BIRTHDAY, WELL, THEY GOT IT! (Maria: Amen!)--But most of it not through me, I wanted the Lord to do it through them.--I got my wish! I got my heart's desire to almost force them out of the woods & into action to try to show them that the Lord could use them too, they didn't have to depend totally on me for messages & revelations & prophecies & spiritual leadership, that the Lord could also guide them.
48. MAYBE WE'RE READY FOR IT AGAIN & MAYBE THERE WILL BE A REASON FOR IT. MAYBE WE'LL BE SEPARATED & MAYBE THE COMMUNICATION WILL BE POOR & THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE TO BE LED DIRECTLY BY THE LORD IMMEDIATELY in their own midst & they won't be able to get the Letters for awhile or something, & in a time of great distress or something, they'll have to have direct leadership of the Lord in the local assembly, if they can't get the Word from us by mail.
49. SO PERHAPS THE LORD IS GIVING THAT EXAMPLE OF THE BIRTHDAY NIGHT TO SHOW WHAT CAN HAPPEN IF THEY DO GET OUT OF TOUCH & CAN'T COMMUNICATE & THEY CAN'T LOOK TO US for leadership, that they can look straight to the Holy Spirit right there in their midst & not have to wait for a Letter & not have to wait for a Book, but look to the Lord & "For God's Sake, Follow God!" (See No.4) in their local situation by the direct leadership of the Holy Spirit right there through spiritual leaders & wise guides that are able to govern well the church of God & who are able to judge what's true & what's false!
50. THEY'VE GOT THE GUIDELINES OF ALL THE LETTERS NOW, there are nearly 2,000 Letters, & so there is really no excuse, the leadership of the Homes has no excuse for not knowing the truth & knowing the difference between false & true, whether it confirms & fits the truth of God's original guidelines laid down in the Letters, or whether it is false & detracting, distracting or misguided & leading people astray.
51. SO IT MAY BE TIME FOR THAT AGAIN! MAYBE THE LORD IS GOING TO AGAIN GIVE US GREAT SPIRITUAL OUTPOURING & tongues & interpretations, prophecies, messages, miracles etc. to help & encourage & inspire & even govern the local Homes who may get out of touch with each other through no fault of their own, but through persecution or a breakdown of the communication system or the mails. And this is one thing I want to talk with you leaders about & want someone to write a report about--all the contingencies, alternatives & plans that need to be made in case this severe persecution which has swept Europe & is now creeping Eastward continues, what plans we have made to meet it, deal with it, & what contingency plans we have made to carry on in spite of it.
52. BUT I'M SURE THE LORD HAS GIVEN THIS SAMPLE OF THE BIRTHDAY NIGHT TO GIVE THEM A SAMPLE, TO ENCOURAGE THEM IN THESE OPERATIONS OF THE SPIRIT & to help them & to show them what to do in case other lines of communication break down--they've still got a hot line to Jesus by the Holy Spirit & they can still be led directly by the Lord even if they don't know what's going on in the rest of the World! So praise the Lord, "all things work together for good to them that love the Lord"! (Rom.8:28) It has its dangers but it has its wonderful advantages & inspirations, & we don't want to be so afraid of wild fire that we don't have any fire at all! But there were days when no fire at all was almost better than some of the wild fire we were having, manifestations which I had to squelch because of it.
53. AS I STARTED TO SAY, THIS IS WHY THE ALLIANCE WENT BACK ON ALL THOSE THINGS, BECAUSE THEY SAW SO MUCH WILD FIRE & MISUSE IN THE PENTECOSTAL GROUPS WHO WENT WILD! But look at the Assemblies today, who made that as their criterion, the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination in the World, who put that in their constitution!--Look at what happened to them! They got so hard & hide-bound by their doctrine & their limitation of the Holy Spirit, trying to tell the Holy Spirit what to do & how to do it by their limitations, that they got almost as cold & formal & stiff & churchy & denominationally rigid as the Christian Missionary Alliance & the other formal denominations, although they were supposed to be Pentecostal! A lot of the big rich Assembly of God churches you could go to today & you wouldn't know the difference between them & any other church! (Maria: Yes, they almost lost the one thing they did have, the tongues that they insisted on.)
54. YES, A LOT OF THEM EVEN SQUELCHED & FORBADE TONGUES IN THEIR BIG PUBLIC MINISTRIES, forbade the manifestation of the gifts because it scared new members & visitors away, blah, blah! Remember Delusion Centre there in Anaheim?--They didn't allow it in their big Sunday meetings at all, only in private prayer meetings--no tongues, no manifestations whatsoever Sunday morning or Sunday night or at the main public meetings, no gifts allowed!--And that's where Aaron & I got thrown out, bodily, physically, violently, because he got up & gave a message in tongues & interpretation which was really convicting about going into all the World & preaching the Gospel instead of sitting there doing nothing, just enjoying the riches of the Spirit & whatnot! And the ushers came & threw him out, & when I protested they threw me out too!--Ha!
55. SO THAT'S THE STATE THE PENTECOSTALS GOT TO! Well, I can imagine they had a lot of trouble with false prophets & prophecies, so those that ruled with an iron hand just decided not to have any manifestations rather than any misleadings, especially when, ha, ha, true prophets entered in & gave it to them & socked it to them with what they really needed but which was contrary to what they were practising & doing! They really didn't like that! (Maria: That's harder for them to handle than the false prophets!) Yes!
56. THEY COULD PROVE THE FALSE PROPHETS WERE FALSE, BUT THEY SURE COULDN'T PROVE THAT "GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD & PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE" WAS FALSE! That's all Aaron was saying! (Maria: Yes, he prophesied straight Scripture all the time, so nobody could argue against it!) They couldn't argue against it, so they just had to throw him out & me too! The same thing happened to me many times. I'd get up & challenge the preacher that he was preaching something false & it wasn't according to the Scripture, & I'd quote Scripture & they'd throw me out!
57. SO, REGARDING THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT!--IT DEPENDS ON WHAT SPIRIT OR WHAT SPIRITS ARE GIVING THEM WHETHER THEY'RE A BLESSING OR A CURSE OR WHETHER THEY'RE REALLY HELPFUL OR A HINDRANCE! So they have to be very very closely watched & supervised & guided, as I did that Birthday night. And I'm certainly thankful that that night we didn't get a single false prophecy that I know of!
58. (MARIA: SOMETIMES PEOPLE'S TONGUES GET TWISTED & THEY'LL SAY THE WRONG THING. For example, there was one word supposed to be "relishing" & it was said "relinquishing".) Yes, it's because sometimes they're even unfamiliar with the language or with the word or its meaning. But it's usually a very minor little detail, it's a slip of the lip or the tongue rather than any flip of the Spirit or even the mind. And they're quite obvious usually & can be easily corrected in the final transcript.
59. SO THERE ARE PROS & CONS, ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES, YOU JUST HAVE TO TRY TO STRIKE A REAL MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD SENSIBLE BALANCED APPROACH to the manifestations of the gifts of the Spirit in the congregation, & there has to be a good strong spiritual leader, a knowledgeable leader who has gifts himself, who can guide & discern & keep a strong controlling hand on the situation & not let it get away from him & not let any one get away with anything false or which is wrong in either content or operation, false doctrine or whatever.
60. BUT THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT MANY OF OUR HOMES ARE GOING TO NEED DIRECT GUIDANCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. Well they do now, of course, too, on their local matters. We can't be bothered to tell every Home every little detail & run everybody. We've almost done that the best we can from long distance by the Letters, to give them general guidelines to go by, of what to do & what not to.
61. BUT THERE WILL NO DOUBT COME A DAY WHEN SOME HOMES WILL BE CUT OFF & SEPARATED FROM COMMUNICATION BY THEIR SITUATION & they will have to receive all of their guidance directly in their midst by the Holy Spirit, & this Birthday Meeting perhaps was meant to encourage them for that day, that the Lord can speak through them, can give them the messages & the guidance they need directly by the Holy Spirit & gifts of the Spirit. Praise the Lord! Amen! I guess we can call that "The Other Side of the Coin", the coinage of Heaven! Praise the Lord!
62. WHO KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN OR WHERE I'LL BE WHEN IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO TAKE OVER? We may not have time or opportunity to have an official anointing & ordination & commission. It's sort of like the way Mary anointed the Lord beforehand for His burial, we anointed you by the Spirit beforehand for not your burial but your resurrection! (Maria: Yes, that's true!) At least that made it official & worldwide & definite & confirmed by the Lord, as though of course He hadn't already done it many times before, but He had already done it I should say. But this was even a more definite confirmation.
63. AND I THINK IT WAS PERHAPS EVEN MORE FOR YOUR SAKE THAN FOR THEIRS, BECAUSE I DON'T THINK ANY OF THEM DOUBTED YOUR LEADERSHIP ABILITY.--You doubt it more than they do! I think it was to encourage you & give you the official Word! Now you can't weasel out of it by saying you don't have it, & blah, blah!--Ha! GBY!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
