HomeARC ML 1941
THE CLINICAL METHOD OF WITNESSING! 1/85 DO 1941
--You Lead & Let'm Read!
--The Five Points of Witnessing!--Witnessing Dangers!
1. IT'S NOT ENOUGH JUST TO TELL PEOPLE TO GO OUT & WIN SOULS, OR EVEN JUST TELL'M HOW TO GO OUT & WIN SOULS, OR EVEN JUST TO TAKE COURSES IN HOW TO WIN SOULS, YOU'VE GOTTA SHOW'M HOW TO WIN SOULS! You have got to actually take'm with you & demonstrate to them as they watch you witness & win souls, that's the best way. That's why Fred Jordan called his method of teaching the Clinical Method & his school The Soul Clinic, because in most hospitals & clinics they've learned that the best way for doctors to be trained is not just to have all these years & years of book-learning & theory & head-stuffin' & blah blah & then expect to go right in & learn how to carve up people & poison people & all that, they can do it a lot better if they watch somebody else carve'm up & poison'm! Nobody hardly smiled when I said that because it's almost too true!
2. THEY DON'T OFFICIALLY GIVE THEM THE TITLE "DOCTOR", DOCTOR SO-&-SO, UNTIL THEY'VE GRADUATED FROM MEDICAL SCHOOL, & THEN THEY STILL HAVE TO SERVE THREE YEARS, ISN'T IT? (Fam: I think it's 1-1/2 years of internship & 1-1/2 years of residence.) So all together it's three years before they're really considered a full-fledged doctor in a hospital, actually working on people. The 1-1/2 years of internship is simply helping other officially full-fledged doctors, watching them work & helping them like an assistant, being like assistant doctors as they really learn. Then finally they trust them with residency & make them a resident doctor in the hospital, & they do just about everything the full-fledged doctors do, but under the supervision & guidance of official doctors & heads of the hospital etc.
3. SO THEY'VE HAD 12 YEARS OF GRADE SCHOOL & HIGH SCHOOL, FOUR YEARS OF COLLEGE, THEN 4 OR 5 YEARS OF MED SCHOOL, 20 YEARS OF EDUCATION & THEY'RE STILL NOT A DOCTOR!--20 years altogether & they've still got to be taught like a baby to do things right in the hospital & watch somebody else do it & teach them how to do it, show'm how to do it, & that's called the Clinical Method. I don't know why it's called the Clinical Method, I don't even know what clinic means, all I know is it's some kind of a hospital. Usually it means a small hospital of some kind, something run by maybe one doctor or something. But they still call that the Clinical Method because they learn by being shown & by watching someone else do it. And then as they're actually taught how to do it by being shown & watching, then they're given the tools or whatever it is while the doctor stands over their shoulder & watches them to make sure they do it right!
4. AND THAT'S THE WAY WE USED TO DO IN THE SOUL CLINIC, WE ALWAYS SENT OUT ONE GOOD, EXPERIENCED WITNESS & SOUL-WINNER--AS WE NOW CALL'M, OLDER BROTHERS & SISTERS--WITH A BABE OR A BEGINNER. The older brother or sister would show the newcomer how we witness & would knock on the doors & start the spiels & do all the things that they were supposed to do, while the novice, the babe, the beginner, would just watch what they were doing. And by & by when the expert had decided that the young babe or the beginner had watched long enough & should know how by this time, we'd say, "Okay, your turn! You knock, you sell, you give the pitch!" Usually in the Soul Clinic, this was only after about 2 or 3 doors! We figured after 2 or 3 times of watching they should be able to try! Well, actually we're soul doctors but we weren't sewing up people or poisoning them, therefore it was a little safer.
5. WE ALWAYS HAD SOME LITTLE PITCH COOKED UP: KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK! "GOOD MORNING, HOW ARE YOU THIS MORNING? Fine day, isn't it? How're you doing?" "Well, I'm real busy, I've got the kid in the high chair & the dinner on the stove & the wash in the washtub, what do you want?" The poor woman was real busy, you know. "Well, we just wanted to ask you a question. We're taking a neighbourhood survey, what church do you belong to?" "Oh, I'm a Baptist," or "I'm a Methodist," almost always they belong to some church. Even if they hadn't been to church for years they didn't want to be considered a heathen. Of course, the area I worked in, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, they all said they were Jewish & they went to the synagogue, & that was a little tougher nut to crack! It's a lot easier to work in a Catholic neighbourhood where they're all supposed to believe in Jesus & God & the Bible & already believe all these things. There it was easy.
6. WE'D SMILE & SAY, "OH, THEN YOU REALLY KNOW YOU'RE SAVED & GOING TO HEAVEN, DON'T YOU?" Even though we knew they probably didn't, we'd try to encourage them & be positive, give a positive approach. Of course, then their face would fall & they'd look a little sad & downcast & stammer around & stutter & say, "No, not really. I won't really know till I get there & Saint Peter weighs up my good deeds against my sins & finds out whether I really deserve to go to Heaven or not. I don't really know!" Most of them would stop & say, "No, I'm not sure, I don't really know." Very few Catholics I ever met knew they were saved.
7. SOME WOULD CHALLENGE ME & SAY, "HOW ARE YOU GONNA KNOW? WHO KNOWS? NOBODY KNOWS! WE WON'T KNOW TILL WE GET TO THE JUDGEMENT!" And we'd tell them then, "But you can know, would you like to know for sure?" They'd say, "Well sure, who wouldn't?" "Well look, I'll show you, right here! It says, 'For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life!' See there? 'He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life!'" We'd explain it to them. "For He stands at the door & knocks, & if you let Him come in, He'll stay with you. You've got it, you're saved, you can be sure! 'For by grace are ye saved through faith & that not of yourself, it is the Gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast! For the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin!'" I'm giving you these real fast, faster than I gave it to them, because I'd let them read it & let it soak in every time.
8. MOST OF THE TIME I WITNESSED WITH MY BIBLE UPSIDE-DOWN! You've got to be able to find Scriptures with your Bible upside-down. You can't take the time to keep turning it around & going zoom, zoom, zoom, like this, you've gotta do it like this! You've gotta be able to read the Books from the tops of the pages & read the numbers upside-down, because you've gotta keep it right under their nose & keep'm reading or you're going to lose their attention. If you turn the Bible around & start hunting for something, they're going to start looking at the top of your head & thinking about other things & the things they ought to be doing instead of listening to you etc.
9. SO YOU'VE GOT TO REALLY KEEP'M BUSY: "LOOK, READ THIS! OH, IT SAYS THAT HERE, READ THIS!" Don't you read it to'm, most of them can read. So you just keep that Bible under their nose & keep them interested. Even while you're talking & flipping pages, keep them interested so that you won't lose their attention. Stick another verse under there real quick.
10. MAYBE YOU COULD HAVE TABS CUT OR MARKED IN YOUR BIBLE TO MARK DIFFERENT BOOKS OR PARTS OF THE BIBLE LIKE WE DID WITH THE LETTER INDEX. You know the old-fashioned way of marking, how you did in school? If a Bible is not thumb-indexed, you can put these marks there so that when you flip through the Bible like that, you can find things easier. What do they call that with cards?--You shuffle the deck, I think. When you ruffle or riffle the pages, then you can see the marks & you can turn to that Book immediately. For example, if you're witnessing about the Endtime, maybe you could have the 16 Endtime points marked with red half-moons so you can turn right to'm!--Or I've seen guys who get little paper tabs that you can buy at the bookstore, & put those on the page & have each one ready to flip to that particular one.--And stick it right under their nose & get them to read it, if they can read at all, & that'll be much more impressive! THE POWER OF THE WORD!--Lead & Let'm Read!
11. THERE'S TREMENDOUS POWER IN THE WORD OF GOD! You can talk about MO Letters, but there are too many MO Letters to show them, unless you've got a MOP, of course, then you could maybe flip to it in the MOP.--Or if you've got a BOF you could flip to it in the BOF. But it's funny about a lot of people, even if you read Scriptures from there, if it doesn't look like a Bible it doesn't have quite the same impact or impression.
12. MOST OF THE WORLD KNOWS ABOUT THE BIBLE, EVEN THE HEATHEN, THEY'VE HEARD ABOUT IT. Just like you've heard about the Koran, they've heard about the Bible & know it's a Holy Book. So it would be much more impressive to them if you were able to take the Bible & flip it & show them things in the Bible. Besides, the Bible is a lot less controversial than the MO Letters. You may offend somebody right off the bat if you start pulling out a MO Book & sticking that under their nose! They might say, "Oh, I don't believe that junk!" For example, the Mormons are supposed to believe both the Bible & the Book of Mormon, & if they'd stick a Bible under your nose you might be willing to read it. But if you don't like the Mormons & you're prejudiced against them, you might not even take a second look at the Book of Mormon. You'd say, "Oh, that's false," or something, & a lot of people think that about the MO Letters.
13. BUT THE BIBLE IS PRETTY WELL GENERALLY ACCEPTED BY THE WORLD & AT LEAST RESPECTED BY MANY OF THE UNSAVED & even by foreigners & other religions as being one of the Holy Scriptures, even the Orientals. People have a certain amount of respect & reverence for holy books. Even if they're not a Christian they'll probably be interested in what it has to say, especially on these subjects you're talking about, to prove that this Holy Book that millions & millions, in fact billions have received, says these things. You've got a lot more weight, a lot more authentication & authority & documentation if you'll use the Bible & have these Scriptures ready & marked & thumb-indexed or tab-indexed somehow so you can flip your Bible for them to read it!
14. THE BIBLE, TO ME, IS STILL THE GREATEST TOOL IN WITNESSING, PARTICULARLY AS FAR AS THE SO-CALLED CHRISTIAN WORLD, & EVEN CAN BE, I BELIEVE, AMONGST THE ORIENTAL WORLD. I haven't used it on many Orientals except Jews, but I've used it on them & they respect at least the Old Testament Scriptures, & some are curious & interested in the New Testament. So I think you'll find it a very indispensable book in your witnessing, & you should always carry one with you witnessing.
15. SOME PEOPLE SEEM TO THINK THEY DON'T EVEN NEED BIBLES ANY MORE, ALL THEY NEED IS MO LETTERS OR {\ul \i MOPS} OR {\ul \i BOFS} OR POSTERS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. Well, they may serve as very good witnessing tools & are already doing so. But I guess maybe I'm just a little old-fashioned of the old school, I have found by personal experience that there's nothing like reading it, not to them, but letting them read it right out of the Bible themselves, if they can read at all. Of course, if they can't read, you can read it to'm. And of course they would have to understand English unless you can read in their language.
16. "THE WORD OF GOD IS QUICK & POWERFUL & SHARPER THAN ANY TWO-EDGED SWORD," even to the dividing asunder of what? (Fam: Soul & spirit.) And what? (Fam: Of the joints & marrow.) (Heb.4:12) How can you divide the bone from the marrow when the marrow is the heart of the bone? It's gotta be a pretty sharp sword to do that, not only splitting souls from their spirits, that's not hard to do, to kill people, but to split the bone from the marrow, to split their bones as well, that's pretty hard to do, that's gotta be a pretty sharp sword! The writers who were talking knew a lot about killing & a lot about fighting & swords & mayhem, so it wasn't hard for them to understand those words in those days.
17. OF COURSE, IF YOU'VE SEEN MOVIES & TV NOWADAYS YOU'LL KNOW A LOT ABOUT IT TOO--HORRIBLE! We hear they're getting worse all the time, more blood & guts & gore & horrible things! It's just almost unbelievable the junk they will put on television at early hours when children can watch it. They're absolutely polluting the Earth, mostly American movies at that. Of course some of the Chinese & Oriental movies are no better, in fact they learn most of it from the Americans. So they put on all that blood & guts & gore & horror for children to see--it's pitiful! It's just horrible! God's going to hold them responsible one of these days, He's holding them responsible now. That's why He's got to judge'm, in order to punish'm, & why the Lord has to really bear down both in the Tribulation & the Wrath.
18. SO YOU'LL DO A LOT BETTER IN YOUR WITNESSING IF YOU'LL GET THEM TO RESPOND EACH TIME BY READING A SCRIPTURE. "And do you know what's going to happen next? Here, read it! You know what's going to happen next after that? Here, read it!" That's the best way to keep their attention & the best way to get them to remember it & really never forget. They may not memorise the verse completely, but they'll never forget that they read that right in the Bible, that's really what it said, that's really what's going to happen. So don't just rattle it off like I did in "The Endtime Story" (See No.1911, GN 187.), because that's not going to do nearly as well. I've learned from experience in witnessing, & I've done a lot of it, that there's nothing like presenting the Word.
19. IF YOU'RE IN A SITUATION WHERE YOU'RE WITH SOMEBODY IN A FANCY RESTAURANT AT A DINNER LIKE WE WERE, FOR EXAMPLE, WITH ARTHUR THAT TIME, YOU CAN'T ALWAYS EXACTLY BREAK OUT A BIBLE.--Sometimes you might, but some proud people like Arthur would have been embarrassed, especially in front of other people, waiters & waitresses & whatnot, for us to be reading to him out of the Bible or having him repeat & read from the Bible. Usually you can only do that in personal witnessing privately, because people are even embarrassed to do that in front of their wife or their husband or children or a friend or anybody else at all.
20. THE BEST PERSONAL WITNESSING IS ABSOLUTELY PRIVATE, ABSOLUTELY ALONE! That's why our FFers do so well with their fish, because that's something you do in private usually, alone, when you can really get their full attention & concentration & really work'm over in every way. The best personal witnessing is private, because there's nothing else & nobody else to distract'm or to get their attention or get their mind off of what you're talking about or what you're getting them to read out of the Bible. So remember that's the best way to do it, to get them to read it for themselves.
21. YOUR BEST ABILITY IS TO BE ABLE TO FIND IT FAST, & THE BEST WAY TO FIND IT FAST IS TO HAVE IT SO MARKED THAT YOU CAN JUST FLIP FROM ONE TO ANOTHER, BUP BUP BUP, BANG BANG BANG! You know, it doesn't matter how good a gun you've got & it doesn't matter how much ammunition you have, if you don't know how to shoot it & you don't know how to fire it in rapid succession, it's not going to do much good. When I was a kid, the first gun I ever had was a single-shot BB gun, & every time I shot a BB, then I had to pull the box of BBs out of my pocket & run out one more little BB into my palm from this box of BBs, & then I'd have to carefully insert that back in the muzzle of the gun & then shoot again. It was a couple of minutes before I could shoot again, & by that time my quarry had gotten away!
22. IF YOU DON'T SHOOT FAST, LET ME TELL YOU, SOME OF THAT QUARRY'S GOING TO GET AWAY! You'd better be able to rattle off like a Gatling gun! Well, they don't use Gatling guns any more, but that was one of the first machine guns. You've gotta be able to rattle'm off fast! Why do they have machine guns?--Because if one doesn't get you, the other one will! Right? "If the right one don't get you, the left one will!"--As the old song goes! You've gotta be able to rattle it off so fast they can't get distracted, they can't hardly think about anything else. You hit'm with one, then you hit'm with another one & then you hit'm with another Scripture!
23. KEEP'M SO BUSY READING SCRIPTURE THEY CAN'T LOOK AT ANYTHING ELSE, at you or your legs or whatever, & think about something else, because you've got'm busy reading Scripture! As long as you've got your eyes focused on something like that & that's at the focal point of your attention, the human mind is so constructed that about all you can think about is what you're reading.--Especially if you're reading. That's why our kids are so good at concentrating, when they read they really concentrate. It doesn't matter what else is going on in the room, they get over there & read like they're in another World & don't even hear what's going on or pay any attention to it, thank the Lord!
24. SO YOU'VE GOTTA REALLY KEEP THAT QUARRY, THAT TARGET OR THAT FISH BUSY WITH THE SCRIPTURES, GETTING HIM TO DO THE ACTION, GETTING HIM TO DO THE READING! You just lead the way & let him do the reading. You lead & let him read! That's the best kind of witnessing, believe it or not. Of course, if you don't have anything but a BOF or a MOP or maybe an Endtime Newspaper & you're using that, or you're using one of the Heaven Posters or something, well, fine. If you can't get anything else for him to read, just have him read the text on the back, "Here, turn it around, see what it says! Look what this first paragraph says, now read this next one. Now what does it say here?" Get him or her to read it!
25. IF YOU JUST SELL'M A POSTER, HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY'RE REALLY GOING TO READ IT? If business is slow & you have a chance to go over & sit on the park bench & you see you've got somebody that's really hungry & a sheep, then go over it with them.--Better still, find someplace more private than a park bench if you can. Sometimes a restaurant is even more private. Or if you can take her to your hotel room or him to your hotel room or his hotel room or whatever, privacy is great! Our sexy little girls are grinning because they know what they're probably going to do besides reading the Bible! Well, that's part of love too, to show'm love. The Bible says, if you've got it beside you & your brother needs it, you owe it to him. PTL? (Jam.2:16; Pro.3:27,28)
26. BUT ANYHOW, KEEP'M BUSY READING IT, WHATEVER YOU'RE USING AS YOUR TOOL, WHETHER IT'S THE BIBLE OR A MOP OR A BOF OR A POSTER OR ENDTIME NEWS OR WHATEVER! Don't you just sit there & rattle it off to'm & talk away until you drone'm to sleep, that's the worst kind of way to witness! I'll never forget one guy we went witnessing with when I first got to the Soul Clinic. He was a preacher & he thought he knew it all! The lady came to the door & he'd hear the baby crying & the washing machine going & everything, & do you know what he did? He opened his Bible & said, "Now dearly beloved, we are gathered here together to tell you this," blah blah blah blah!--Like he was preaching a sermon from a pulpit! He didn't know how to witness! All he knew was how to preach sermons.
27. AND WHEN PREACHERS PREACH SERMONS NOBODY INTERRUPTS THEM, OF COURSE, THAT WOULD BE TERRIBLE! NOBODY ASKS ANY QUESTIONS.--IN FACT, PROBABLY NOBODY LISTENS EITHER! So he's the only one that's listening or paying attention. He just goes on & the other people sit there & daydream & wonder how much machinery the building could hold, or "If I was constructing this building I would have built it this way or that way." "I wonder why that picture's crooked over there?" Come on, be honest, that's what you've done in church instead of listening to what's being said! But you cannot think about all that if you have to read something that's stuck under your nose!--Whether it's a Bible or a book or a poster or whatever it is! Get them to read it! How do you know they're ever going to read it if you don't get'm to read it on the spot?
GET A DECISION!
28. HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY'RE EVER GOING TO MAKE A DECISION IF YOU DON'T TRY TO GET'M TO READ IT & THEN MAKE A DECISION ON THE SPOT? Get a decision, whatever you do! Whether it's one way or the other, try to get a decision, & you'll always get a decision. No matter how good or poor your witness was, whether you did it right or wrong or whatever, you can ask them to receive Jesus as their Saviour. Whether you think it's the time or not the time, "be instant in season & out of season." (2Tim.4:2) Sometimes you've got to take a chance. "I may never see this guy again, I'd better sock it to him right now! I may never see her again, I'd better pop the question right now!" It may be your last chance, you may not get to see'm again! Ask'm, "Do you want to receive Jesus or not?"--And you'll get an answer! You'll always get an answer--either "yes," or "no," or "maybe later," & that's the same as a no. But get the answer, ask'm!
29. PUT'M ON THE SPOT! MAKE'M MAKE A DECISION! Some people don't even want to make a decision, they know they're being put on the spot, but your business is to drive them to a decision, believe it or not. Our main business is to witness & try to get people to make a decision, & even your witness makes them make a decision, they either accept it or reject it, they believe it or they don't believe it, they receive it or they don't receive it. Even if you don't actually pop the question, they're making a decision in their heads. But it's still better to make sure & pop the question.
30. ALL YOUR COURTIN' OF A PRETTY GIRL & LOVIN' & ALL THE REST IS NEVER GOING TO NAIL HER UNLESS YOU FINALLY POP THE QUESTION, WHATEVER THE QUESTION MAY BE!--Whether it's marriage or "shall we go to bed now?" or what! You've gotta pop the question.--Either that, or maybe you do it caveman-style, you grab her by the nape of the neck & drag her off to your room or bed or something! She may not appreciate that, although I understand some women like that sort of thing. (Kids giggle!) They're listening!--Ha! Every now & then you can tell they're listening, they kind of explode or something.
31. THAT'S WHY I LIKE AUDIENCE RESPONSE! That's why most actors, comedians, performers & speakers do better before an audience, because they get instant response & get the instant reaction to see how it's going over, whether it's hittin' the mark or not, & if they're not listening, you're missing the mark! If they're not even paying attention & you're just droning on with your sermon, that's the way some people witness, & they could never tell whether the person even heard what they were saying or not! Let me tell you, when you stick this Bible under their nose, or any book or tool or poster or whatever it is & you get them to read it, you know they're listening! If they won't listen to you, they'll listen to themselves read it, they've got to listen. If it goes in here (eyes), let me tell you, they'll remember 80% of it. If it goes in here (ears), 60% of it goes out the other ear! At least that's the way some figure. Savvy?
THE FIVE MAIN POINTS OF WITNESSING!
32. WELL, I DIDN'T INTEND TO GIVE YOU A LESSON ON WITNESSING THIS MORNING, but since you never had my classes on witnessing, I guess maybe it might have been needed! You people here have all been witnesses some time, somewhere, somehow or you wouldn't be here today! We don't take people here who haven't had real experience in witnessing, litnessing, leadership, doing some kind of job for the Lord! How many of you have done some litnessing, out in the field, on the street, street corner, house-to-house or wherever? How many of you have done some personal witnessing, trying to win a soul for the Lord? See?--Everybody here except some of our children. But even you children have done some witnessing, you went to the farmer's house & witnessed to other people out in restaurants etc. Maybe you didn't always know it was witnessing, but that's just being good & showing love to people & smiling, & then the people rave over you, "What good little children, what marvellous little children you have, how obedient, how quiet!"--That's witnessing!
33. JUST A SMILE IS WITNESSING, THAT'S SHOWING LOVE! Passing people on the street smiling, that's showing love. We've never said a word to the people across the street, but when they've seen us we smile & we wave & they smile & wave back. You've cheered somebody up, you've shown'm there's love in the World, that somebody loves'm. Just by waving & smiling at them, we're showing them we love them! Think of that! And you don't even have to wave. You're not going to wave at everybody you pass on the street or they would think you're a little bit loony, but it's all right to smile. Even if you smile at a lot of people on the street, some people may think you're some kind of a nut! Well, praise God, let'm think we're nuts, a lot of'm do, but at least we cheer'm up if nothing else but to laugh at us! So smile! Show'm love! But if you have time, get'm in a corner someplace alone & shove the Bible under their nose or some literature or poster or something, & get them to look at it & read it! And the way to do it is you ask them questions, then they've got to give you the answers.
34. DO YOU WANT ME TO GIVE YOU THE MAIN FOUR POINTS OF WITNESSING? Maybe it was five or more, I've forgotten. I've given these to you before. How many of you have got'm someplace in your Bible or in your notebooks? How many also forgot'm as well as got'm? You got'm & you forgot'm! Of course, one of the main things is, first you've gotta go someplace to find somebody to witness to. So one of the main points of witnessing is to go witness! Amen? And one of the best ways to start witnessing is just exactly the same way you get acquainted with anybody or any stranger: "Hi, how are you? Nice day, isn't it?" Just talk about the weather or anything, everybody's interested in the weather. Don't get into politics as far as taking sides in anything political, but you can talk about the economy & say, "The World is sure in a mess, isn't it?"--Get into some interesting subject. And of course the most interesting subject to everybody is guess what? (Fam: Themselves.) You had the right answer, how about that? I thought somebody was going to say the Future.
35. GET THEM TO TALK ABOUT THEMSELVES!--BECAUSE AS A WITNESS, A PERSONAL SOUL-WINNER, YOU ARE A SOUL DOCTOR! We used to give Soul Doctor Degrees upon graduating from our Soul Clinic School. You got an S.D., Soul Doctor Degree, or S.D.D., I forgot what we called it. Anyhow, we used to have pretty certificates made up all fancy to make'm feel like they really got something, they had something they could frame & put on the wall to prove they had really finished a course, kept the faith & fought a good fight through all those lessons & tests. They had something to show for it & to be proud of, a certificate from the Soul Clinic to put on the wall!
36. WELL, YOU ARE SOUL DOCTORS, & WHAT DOES A DOCTOR DO? You come in, you've got problems, you've got trouble, does he immediately start writing out the prescription to you? You know the prescription, you know the remedies, but they're going to think you're kind of crazy if you start giving them the remedy without even finding out what's wrong with them! They want to talk, they want to tell you about themselves, & the thing people like to talk about the most is themselves.
37. THE WORST KIND OF A BORE IS SOMEBODY THAT TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF WHEN I WANT TO TALK ABOUT MYSELF! You probably get bored in classes sometimes because I talk so much, sometimes even about myself, & I don't give you a chance to talk about yourself. Well, I try to get it out of you & I try to get you to talk about what I'm talking about & that's why I ask a lot of questions. You'll find in most of my teaching I'm constantly asking questions, I want you to talk, respond, get your attention, see if you're thinking, make you think, make you want to think, make you want to answer.
38. SO GET THEM TO TALK, & THAT WAY YOU'LL FIND OUT WHAT'S WRONG WITH THEM, WHAT THEIR SEVEREST PROBLEMS ARE, WHAT THEIR BACKGROUND IS. How are you going to know what Scriptures to give'm when you don't even know what they need? How are you going to know what the prescription is--the prescription Scripture--unless you find out what their problem or their illness or their ailment is? How are you going to give a Catholic the Scriptures that a Catholic needs about grace & salvation, if you don't even find out he's a Catholic or whether he knows how to be saved or not? You need to talk to them, get acquainted & let them talk.
39. AND ALMOST EVERYBODY, IF YOU SHOW'M A LITTLE HUMAN INTEREST, A LITTLE LOVE, A LITTLE CONCERN & ASK THEM QUESTIONS, THEY'LL TALK!--If you're in a place where there's an opportunity to talk. Of course, if you're in some screaming disco where you can't even hear yourself think, much less anybody else, you can't talk there. That's why we avoided those places in our FFing. Or if you're on a roaring train or a rattling noisy bus, it's pretty hard sometimes to talk to somebody without yelling your head off! Well, even if you have to yell your head off, you might find out something.
40. SO TRY TO FIND A LITTLE COZY QUIET PLACE IF YOU CAN. Invite them to lunch or go over in a quiet corner of the park. If you can get'm in a bedroom, that's fine, all the better! You can not only talk but show'm love. But try to get someplace quiet if you can & private so that they can really pour out their heart without being embarrassed by others or conscious of others or distracted by others or anything else.
41. NOW DON'T TRY TO GO INTO SOME OFFICE & STAND UP THERE & PREACH A SERMON & GET THE WHOLE OFFICE STAFF STOPPING THEIR WORK TO LISTEN TO YOU, at least not for very long, or you're going to get in trouble with the boss!--Unless he's one of them & he's listening & letting them listen. That's why literature is so good for busy people on occasions where you can't say too much yourself. You can give them something to read & think over afterward. But in personal soul-winning & witnessing, the best thing is to try to get them alone in a quiet, private place where they can really concentrate & hear you & you can hear them & you have a chance to converse & talk, & where it's also, if possible, light enough that they can read the things you're asking them to read, the answers!
42. SO THE FIRST THING TO DO WHEN YOU'RE WITNESSING IS TO FIND SOMEBODY & SOMEPLACE WHERE YOU CAN REALLY TALK & WITNESS QUIETLY & PRIVATELY IF POSSIBLE. It's not always possible, but try, or get as near to that as you can. And then you get them to talk about themselves--but how? (Fam: Ask questions.) And let them give you their answers, that's the second thing, let them talk. Even if they want to rattle on & on about their whole life story & pour out their heart, sometimes that's just what they need & it does them good just to talk & confess & share with somebody else. That's good.
43. SO YOU START OFF WITH A GOOD PRIVATE PLACE, IF POSSIBLE, WITH ONE PERSON, SOMETIMES TWO. I found, however, that two or three are too conscious of each other & they're not going to be as honest with you because they're trying to uphold their reputation, they're not going to confess everything. Some people will confess more to a stranger than they will to their own friends. They'll tell a stranger more than they would their own mother! They figure they're never going to see you again anyhow, so what difference does it make? And if they find you have the least little bit of interest or concern about them, a little bit of love, they'll pour their heart out to you. And the Lord & His Spirit will work on them to show them that you really love them & that you're concerned, & it will cause them to pour out their heart to you.
44. SO GET'M ALONE, PRIVATE, PERSONALLY & QUIET, THEN ASK THEM QUESTIONS TO GET THEM TO TALK. You may not have to ask them more than one question & then they start rattling off. Some people are just talkative & they'll just rattle on, they like to talk, especially about themselves. Say, "Oh, hi! Where are you from?" Let's face it, when we meet strangers, if you venture to talk with them at all, taxi drivers, waiters, whoever it may be, what's one of the first questions they ask you? "Oh hi, where are you from?" That's one of the questions that sometimes we have to try to avoid & parry, especially for security, so that we don't have to talk too much.
45. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, IN WITNESSING, YOU'RE NOT THE ONE WHO'S SUPPOSED TO DO THE TALKING AT FIRST, OR YOU MAY FIND OUT YOU'RE TALKING TO THE WRONG GUY! It's best to get them to talk first to see where they're at, see where they stand, see who they are, what they are, where they are, as well as where they're from etc. Then you'll know how to talk to'm eventually. So ask questions, listen to their answers, then what? (Fam: Give them what they should do about it.)--Give them God's answers!
46. FIRST OF ALL TRY TO GET'M IN A QUIET, PERSONAL PLACE TO TALK, THEN ASK QUESTIONS & LISTEN TO THEIR ANSWERS. Even if you have to listen for a long time & they rattle on their whole life story, keep trying to turn them the right direction when you see what they need, etc. Sort of try to guide the conversation if you can by asking more questions: "Oh, is that so? What about this or what about that & what did you do then? Well, did you ever do so-&-so?" Try to guide the conversation if you can with loaded questions that you know what you're leading up to.
47. SO THAT'S THE BASIC PRINCIPLE: ASK QUESTIONS, LISTEN TO THEIR ANSWERS, THEN GIVE THEM GOD'S ANSWERS! They have all kinds of answers, & probably most of them are wrong, some of them might be right, but you really have the right answers. So once they've rattled off & given all their solutions & answers which they themselves don't even believe & know don't work, you start giving them God's answers: "Well, do you know what it says here, what it says there? Do you know what God said about it? Do you know what it really means? Do you know what you really need to do?" etc. Then is your time to start giving them God's answers, & the best way to do it is, "Well, you know what it says here--look! Well, you know what God said about that?--Read this here! Read it! Hear God's Word!" And it's good to have your Bible kind of marked up. You'll notice mine is a little bit marked up, & my old one was even worse. In fact, I finally had to quit using it because it was falling all apart, even the pages were falling apart because I'd used them so much I'd worn'm out.
48. BUT THEN AFTER YOU HAVE ASKED THE QUESTIONS, LISTENED TO THEIR ANSWERS & THEN GIVEN GOD'S ANSWERS, THE FINAL & MOST IMPORTANT THING IS TO GET A DECISION! So I would say really those are the five most important points of witnessing, not just four. I added one to the original Soul Clinic Course, & of course they did that in practice. The first thing you've got to tell most people who want to be witnesses or who are going to witness, is, "Well, go witness! Find somebody in the right place & situation to witness in!" So to me the first point of witnessing is to witness, go someplace & find somebody to talk to. And ask them questions, listen to their answers, give them God's answers & get a decision! PTL!
49. AND YOU'LL FIND THAT ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING THINGS TO MOST PEOPLE IS THE FUTURE, BIBLE PROPHECY. You start asking them, "Well, do you know what the Bible says about this? Do you know what the Bible says is going to happen next?" "No, really? Show me!" Some may even want to see & ask to see it, & you've got it, you've got all the answers! You've got the lit, you've got the whole works! You've got the wit & you've got the lit & you can keep'm out of the pit & give'm it!
GET THEM TO TRY IT!
50. BUT NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU SHOW PEOPLE HOW TO DO A JOB, THEY WILL NEVER REALLY KNOW HOW TO DO IT UNTIL THEY HAVE DONE IT THEMSELVES, & THE SAME WITH WITNESSING & SALVATION. You can preach at'm, you can show'm & everything, but you need to let them read it for themselves, & "faith cometh by hearing the Word of God"! (Rom.10:17) I've seen the light of faith dawn on faces while they were reading the Scripture: "Well, I never knew that was in there! Why, that's a fact! Then if I believe in Jesus I'm really saved!" Then we'd say, "Well now wait a minute, there are lots of people that believe in God & the Bible & church & Jesus & all that & say they believe, but they sure don't act like it! They go to church on Sunday & live like Hell all the rest of the time. It says that whosoever receiveth Him, to them He gives Everlasting Life, He makes them sons. You have to receive Jesus personally yourself, not just have a head faith & believe that He existed."
51. SOME PEOPLE SAY, "SURE I BELIEVE IN JESUS, IT'S IN HISTORY! He's a historical figure, of course He lived!" "But do you really believe He's the Son of God?" Well, nearly all good Catholics would say, "Of course I believe He's the Son of God." Of course with the Jews, there's a whole different approach on that, but I won't deal with the Jews this morning, that's too tough a subject! We had a special course, a whole course in itself just on how to witness to Jews. The others were easy, like rolling off a log compared to witnessing to Jews!
52. THEN WE'D SAY, "BUT YOU REALLY NEED TO RECEIVE HIM PERSONALLY YOURSELF & KNOW THAT YOU HAVE JESUS YOURSELF. You say you believe, but do you really know you have Jesus in your heart?" They'd look blank & look doubtful, "Well, I don't know, maybe. I had confirmation, I had my baptism & they told me that that's supposed to save me." "But you don't really know that you've got Jesus in your heart, you're not really sure? Why don't you make sure right now! Come on, let's pray together & ask Jesus to come into your heart. He says, 'Behold, I stand at the door & knock, & if any man hear My voice & open the door, I'll come in!' So He's knockin' at your heart's door right now while I'm talking! My words, His Words, are knocking at your heart's door! So come on, let's pray. Wouldn't you like to pray together right now to make sure?" I don't think I ever had a Catholic refuse me! Later on, however, you have a little problem when the relatives & the priest & all that find it out, & the new convert wants to start going to your church instead of their church! Whew!
DAD'S WITNESSING EXPERIENCES IN LOS ANGELES!
53. MY AREA WAS BOYLE HEIGHTS, BUT IT DID HAPPEN TO HAVE A FEW CATHOLIC MEXICANS LIVING THERE, & ONE WHOLE FAMILY GOT WONDERFULLY SAVED! And it was such a wonderful salvation that I wanted them to come & testify about it down at our little Soul Clinic meeting. And in those days we believed in water baptism. Dear Fred was a good Baptist & he didn't think people really got the full treatment unless they got dunked in the water, so he wanted to baptise this family. I was telling him all about them & how wonderful it was & how happy they were & now they were all reading the Bible & having family devotions together & I was coming to visit'm & they were just coming along fine. He said, "Why don't you bring'm down & let me baptise'm, I'd just love to do that!" I said, "Well, it's a kind of touchy situation right now. Already their family's getting a little leery of my coming there & telling them that they can know they're saved & all that sort of thing."
54. AND OF COURSE YOU KNOW ME, IT WASN'T LONG BEFORE I WAS TELLING THEM THAT THEY DIDN'T REALLY HAVE TO GO TO CHURCH TO BE SAVED. A lot of them would protest, "Well yes, I go to mass every Sunday!" I said, "You know, that doesn't really save you, you've still gotta have Jesus!" "Oh, I do this, I do that!" "Yes, but that won't save you"--& I'd read them the Scriptures about "not of works," etc. So they were beginning to get the point. This sounded like Martin Luther, a little too much like the Protestants. Except that the Protestants have gotten in the same rut, they still have to go to church every Sunday or the preacher won't think they're saved either.
55. BUT ANYWAY, THE RELATIVES WERE BEGINNING TO GET LEERY. First of all they had a visit from Mama, then they had a visit from the whole family, then a couple of the nuns came down to see'm & finally the priest. They were really worried about'm! They didn't seem to be so enthused about coming to mass any more, & here they wanted to go down to what their family considered a Protestant church--it wasn't a church at all, it was just a little meeting hall in Fred's school--& be baptised a Protestant!--The unpardonable sin! Is that a mortal sin? (Fam: It's a mortal sin just to go into a Protestant church!) Just to go into a Protestant church, much less into the water! My, then they were dead & buried for sure!
56. SO THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE! The next time I visited them they said, "Our family's been here, mother & father's been here, grandparents have been here, the nuns have been here, the priest has been here, he's threatened to bring the bishop here if we don't give up this idea of going to Protestant church! And they're going to be after you! It's not even safe for you to come any more, they're threatening to do something to you if you come around us any more!" So sometimes discretion is the better part of valour. That's a nice way of saying sometimes it's better to be a live coward than a dead hero. Jesus Himself said, "When they persecute you in one city, flee to another." (Mat.10:23) Well, I figured if I was going to be getting some persecution in this home, I'd better flee to another! I felt like fleeing to another neighbourhood, I'd had very little success with all those Jews anyhow. The only encouragement I got was a Mexican family once in awhile.
57. SO THEY SAID, "WE'RE AFRAID FOR YOU, IF THEY CATCH YOU HERE THEY MIGHT REALLY GIVE YOU SOME TROUBLE! They're even threatening to call the law on you, & say that you're doing this illegally, proselytising here, etc." Well, we might have been able to go to court in the U.S.A. & fight it out, convince'm that I had religious freedom, freedom of the press, to pass out literature & go door-to-door, etc., but a lot of towns have laws about getting licenses to do that. They get around the Constitution by saying, "Well, we're not prohibiting you from distributing literature, we're not prohibiting you from going door-to-door & advertising your faith etc., but just come down to the City Hall & sign up for a license, pay your $5."--It's probably gone up to $10 or $25 or $100 by this time! "And we consider it selling literature.--Do you get anything in return for this literature?" "Well, sometimes." "Well, that's selling it." "But it's just a gift, we don't have any special price." "Well, it's still selling. You've gotta have a license to be a salesman, gotta have a license to do that sort of thing!" So it's ticklish business even going door-to-door, & on the street it's even more dangerous because lots of countries & lots of cities have laws against what they call "street hawkers" & "littering."
SALESMEN & STREET HAWKERS
58. WHEN WE WERE IN LONDON, ON CERTAIN STREETS THEY DIDN'T ALLOW STREET HAWKERS AT ALL, on some of the main streets like Oxford Street, the shopping areas where all the big stores are. They didn't want any competition from these little hippies selling little geegaws & gadgets & whatnot. We were sitting at a bus stop waiting for a bus when we watched this one hippie one day, & it was the cutest thing! He had this little cart on wheels with this nice big black velvet cover that he'd throw over the top of it, & I think he had a guy working with him that kept an eye out for the bobbies. He'd go rolling along & find a nice spot to stop, try to pick a blank wall, because to stop in front of some storeman's window, that was it, they'd call the cops! But he'd pick some little spot there or just around the corner off the busy street & open up shop. And people would come along & buy his little silver filigree stuff & whatnot, those hippie ornaments & stuff they used to sell that they make by hand themselves, God bless'm. I never could pass one of those guys up, I was always buying stuff from'm. We couldn't really wear it or anything, but I just didn't have the heart.
59. I HAVE A HEART FOR SALESMEN, I WAS ONE MYSELF! I was a street salesman, door-to-door salesman, & later on I was an office-to-office salesman for television. So I've got a real soft heart for poor salesmen. I know how discouraged they get if they don't make a sale. I always figure, "Well, if I'm the only sale they make all day, at least they made one sale & that'll make them happy, it wasn't a complete dud of a day. Maybe they can at least eat on that pound for the day & they won't starve." So we'd usually go along & pick up something & give'm a pound. That was when a pound was worth $2.60!
60. I NOTICED IN THE LATEST NEWS THAT THE POUND IS ONLY WORTH $1.10 NOW, IT'S GOING DOWN FAST! It'll be doing well if it's worth a dollar pretty soon, I presume. I think people are losing confidence in the British economy.--Especially with this long drawn-out miners strike which I'm sure must be Communist. It's probably a Communist effort to undermine the economy & overthrow the government of Great Britain, because this guy Scargill is a Communist if I ever saw one, a rabble-rouser! He's not doing the miners any good, all he wants to do is cause the government trouble & try to bring down the government & bring down the economy. So the stock market's declining, the pound's declining, the government's declining & the place is in a mess. Britain is getting almost as bad off as it was before World War 2 when it was a horrible mess, depression & everything.
61. ANYWAY, THIS GUY HAD HIS LITTLE CART ON WHEELS & HIS LITTLE SPREAD-OUT TRAY THERE THAT HE FLIPPED THIS COVER OVER, & even while he was selling things to you he kept busy looking up & down the sidewalk for bobbies coming at a distance. And you could always see a bobby from quite a long ways away because they wear these tall funny helmets. They're sort of like a pith helmet, a tall, hard hat, sort of round, then they come up this way with a little tiny brim around them like this. I don't know whether they started wearing those to keep from being bopped on the bean by some criminal or what, but I'll tell you, it sure would be good protection! It's real tall.
62. SO HE COULD SEE THOSE HATS STICKING UP ABOVE THE CROWD ON THE SIDEWALK WAY DOWN THE STREET A BLOCK AWAY, THE PATROLMAN ON THE BEAT SLOWLY COMING HIS WAY. Sometimes I think the Bobbies deliberately just sort of took it slow & tried to ignore them, because they had soft hearts too. The best cops I ever met were those Bobbies in London. They were just as sweet as they could be, always cheerful & smiling & helpful. I never really ever saw'm be mean to anybody. So I don't know how those miners can kill cops & do the horrible things they do to'm, bobbies at least, but I guess some of them have to get pretty rough.
63. ANYWAY, IF I WAS PAYING HIM OR SOMETHING HE'D SAY, "HURRY UP, I'M SORRY, I GOTTA GO!"--And he'd flip that cover over his stuff & shoot around the corner out of sight & duck into some doorway or something while the bobby went on his way. And in just a few minutes, to our amazement, out he came again around the corner, opened up shop with a flip of the velvet & there it was!
WITNESSING DANGERS!
64. SO IT'S NOT EASY TO BE A SALESMAN SOME PLACES. They charge you licenses & they ask questions, & in some places you even have to have recommendations & references & blah blah! The existing competition doesn't want any other competition. The established system stores don't want competition from these peddlers. They even do it on the streets in New York City. You come along the sidewalk & here's a big crowd in a circle around something you can't see what it is, & there's some guy down there, often crouched down on his hands & knees or squatting on the sidewalk so he can't be seen, playing with this little mechanical toy or something, selling them right there on the sidewalk. But all of a sudden somebody says, "It's the cops!"--And the guy just suddenly practically vanishes with his little satchel of toys & he is gone, & the crowd disperses 'cause here comes the cops!--Because they've got to have a license for that sort of thing.
65. SO IT'S NOT EASY EVEN GOING DOOR-TO-DOOR, ESPECIALLY STREET HAWKING OF YOUR WARES, PEDDLING PAPERS OR MAGAZINES OR OUR KIND OF LITERATURE, A LOT OF TOWNS HAVE LAWS AGAINST IT. You know what they do with some of them? We've had our kids arrested for littering, & our kids would swear up & down they never threw one on the sidewalk. The police would say, "Yes, but you're peddling them here, & here they are all over the sidewalk!" Well, not too much of our lit got treated that way, except in American cities where they're hard & there would be a few thrown on the sidewalk. The people took it, saw what it was & threw it on the sidewalk. Sometimes I think they did it deliberately to cause us trouble. The cops would come along & see what we were peddling, see it strewn on the sidewalk too, & say, "Hey, buddy, you're litterin'!"--And they'd give'm a fine for littering the sidewalk, $5 or $10 or something, when they hadn't thrown one of them down! "Well, they're your papers, it doesn't matter! Here they are on the sidewalk, looks to us like you're the one that must've thrown'm down, doesn't matter!"--And pull'm in!
66. WE HAD TWO BOYS STANDING RIGHT OUT IN FRONT OF THE LIGHT CLUB ONE DAY WITNESSING TO THESE TWO HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS who'd come walking along & stopped, interested in this good-looking boy & what literature he was passing out. He was talking to them, really witnessing away & socking it to'm & handing them literature, & they were reading it & he was explaining it to'm, when a cop came along & said, "Hey, buddy, stop molesting those girls or we're going to arrest you!" The girls even piped up & said, "He's not molesting us, we want to hear what he's got to say, we want to read it!" The cop got so mad he grabbed one boy & arrested him, took him off to jail, fined him & accused him of molesting the two teenage girls! And you know what molesting is, that's a serious offence in the United States!--It usually means sexual molestation! What else do they call it?--Contributing to the delinquency of a minor. They can file all kinds of charges against you for it!
67. THE SYSTEM'S GOT ALL KINDS OF CRAZY LAWS LIKE THAT WHERE YOU CAN'T EVEN LOVE YOUR OWN CHILDREN, YOU CAN'T EVEN HARDLY TOUCH SOMEBODY! They'll actually say, "Well, did you touch her?--That's molesting!" We've had [EDITED: "people"] who would try to charge us with molesting because we held the Bible & even laid a hand on their shoulder to try to get'm to read it.--You know, lovingly, in a friendly way. They'd say, "Take your hand off my shoulder! That's assault! That's molesting!" We had a woman chase Mama Eve down the street one day. She said that Eve was assaulting her because she tried to hold her hand to pray, she was trying to pray for her.--Some rambunctious old [EDITED: "lady"]!
68. SO IT'S DANGEROUS BUSINESS SOMETIMES JUST DISTRIBUTING ON THE STREET OR GOING DOOR-TO-DOOR! They can't legitimately, constitutionally have laws against it because it's freedom of religion, it's freedom of speech & it's freedom of the press! All three freedoms are being violated when they stop you in the United States from witnessing--freedom of religion, freedom of the press, distributing literature, & freedom of speech, witnessing, telling you what you have to say to others.
69. AND DO YOU KNOW WHO GETS THE CREDIT FOR FIGHTING MORE OF THESE CASES CLEAR TO THE SUPREME COURT & HAVING THEM THROWN OUT AS IN VIOLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION? You know who gets more credit for that than almost anybody else?--Jehovah's Witnesses, number one, Seventh-day Adventists, Mormons & Christian Scientists, those four. I had a whole big thick book on it one time of all the various cases fought clear through the courts & Supreme Court, & every single judgement was in favour of the Witnesses, every one! When it was fought clear through to the Supreme Court they decided in their favour every time. They even threw out laws of licensing or even laws of registration, any kind of impediment or any kind of interference with their freedom to witness, litness & preach the Gospel or whatever they were preaching, the Supreme Court always decided in their favour! But who has the time & the money & the lawyers but some pretty big denominations like that to fight it clear through to the Supreme Court?
70. BROTHER, IF YOU'RE JUST A LITTLE NOBODY WITNESS, ESPECIALLY BELONGING TO THAT AWFUL OUTFIT {\ul \i YOU-KNOW-WHO}, YOU DON'T STAND MUCH OF A CHANCE! "Those people are a menace to the community & they are ferocious & they eat little children & they steal your babies! Oh, they're terrible, they attack your wives & are apt to do almost anything! We've heard they even kill sometimes if you don't do what they tell you to do!" We were accused of killings & all kinds of crazy things! People's imagination just runs riot! The greatest fear is the fear of the unknown. Since they didn't really know us & really know about us, our enemies could tell them any kind of lies, anything, & they'd believe it!--Because we were different & they didn't know us & we didn't come to their church & we're not church people & we did funny things--we dressed funny, we looked funny. That's one reason we revised our clothing code pretty much & told our people to look a little more Systemite & quit looking like hippies unless you're really trying to work with the hippies. Sometimes you have to do as they do & dress like them, which I did in the beginning, but after they became Christians & no longer had to be hippies, we told'm, "You'd better get dressed up & cut your hair or you're still going to be getting persecution from the police & the System & church people, etc."
71. YOU'VE GOT TO REALLY BE AS WISE AS A SERPENT & AS HARMLESS AS A DOVE TO GO ON THE STREET, LIKE WITH THESE POSTERS & WITNESSING ETC., OR EVEN DOOR-TO-DOOR WHERE YOU'RE MORE HIDDEN. You're usually at the door or inside the yard & out of sight, you're not out on the sidewalk where the cop can look clear down two or three blocks & see you out there on the corner. You're back amongst the trees & the bushes & at the door, & very fortunately sometimes they invite you in & you're inside the door & the house door is closed & you're there at the invitation of the householder, & they can't do a damn thing about it!--Unless they have a law that you cannot distribute literature without a license or a permit. Even if the permit costs nothing, they have all kinds of ways to hinder you & make it hard for you. Or they have some law that you cannot do it here in this particular section or there this way or in this park or that place or blah blah!
72. I'LL TELL YOU, THE DEVIL HATES ACTIVE WITNESSING & LITNESSING! THERE'S NOTHING HE HATES WORSE, BECAUSE YOU'RE ON HIS TERRITORY! And let me tell you, he tries his best to protect his territory. We found that school campuses were really the Devil's territory! He had the best protection there of any place you ever tried to go--guards & policemen & ranting, raving, screaming parents & teachers! We got in worse trouble for witnessing on school campuses than any place else. That's where we had our "Costa Mesa 14" & the "Golden West 7" & some of those big court trials we had. Well, thank God, we won'm all except the ones we couldn't get back to after we left. That wasn't our fault. Of course, they may have sworn out a Federal warrant that we were fugitives from justice crossing a state line, a Federal offence. It doesn't matter if it's a parking ticket, if you cross a state line fleeing a court case, it's contempt of court & it becomes a Federal offence!
73. YOU TALK ABOUT DICTATORSHIP, THE U.S.A. HAS GOT IT! They have got it really tight, they've got it all sewed up so there's no way you can get away from it. There's hardly any way you could even begin to operate legally there the way we do! They have laws against litnessing, laws against witnessing, laws against littering, laws against vagrancy. Cops would ask, "How much money have you got in your pocket?" In those days you had to have at least $5 in your pocket or they could take you to jail! And you know our poor little litnessers, how often do they have $5 in their pocket? Well, I hope very often, thank the Lord, & I think they do get along better now!
74. DISTURBING THE PEACE IS ANOTHER ONE! They arrested Josh for disturbing the peace when he was just out there witnessing & litnessing, etc. There's hardly any kind of witnessing or litnessing you can do without breaking some law in the United States in most states & most cities. And if it wasn't a state law, it was a county law, & if it wasn't county it was city, a local zoning ordinance or something. It's just almost unbelievable how many laws they had! So I read this book & it was terrific how the Jehovah's Witnesses & others fought some of these cases from court to court to court & finally clear to the Supreme Court, costing them thousands & thousands of dollars for lawyers & all these things until they finally won the case. Because they were pretty big denominations like Jehovah's Witnesses & Mormons & Seventh-day Adventists & Christian Scientists.
75. YOU'VE PROBABLY SEEN A FEW OF THEM OUT ON THE CORNERS TOO, BECAUSE THEIR PROSELYTISING & CONVERTING DEPENDS ON THAT AGGRESSIVE TYPE OF WITNESSING!--Going where the people are, going downtown to the street corners, going door-to-door, reaching the people who are unreached & unconverted & didn't necessarily belong to any particular church. That's why the Jehovah's Witnesses usually do their best witnessing on Sunday morning when all the church people are in church, because they found out the church people gave them the worst hassle! And what was the use of witnessing to the people who faithfully went to church on Sunday morning? They were stuck in a rut & hooked & church addicts, System addicts, so why bother with them? They're just apt to call the cops on you. If you come to their door & knock, they say, "This guy is molesting me!"
76. OH, ANOTHER ONE IS, "THIS GUY'S TRESPASSING!" They can think of more ways to actually charge you with a crime! It may not be a very big crime & you may not actually go to jail for it, but they at least fine you & sometimes actually put you in jail for maybe two or three days or 30 days, especially if you don't have the money to pay the fine. Some day we oughtta write a list of all the kinds of laws they have in the United States that they can arrest you for just for witnessing & litnessing on the street corner or door-to-door! I don't want to scare people off from doing this, but I'm just warning you that that's the way the U.S.A. is! Freedom? Free country?--Forget it! They'll be just as tough on you there in some of those towns as the KGB or the cops are in Russia!--Just as tough! In fact, I've been surprised to read about some cases in Russia lately, how much they've let'm get away with! I don't think they would have gotten away with that much in the U.S.A., especially if they'd known it was us!
77. SO IT'S DANGEROUS BUSINESS & IT'S DIFFICULT! And the danger isn't only from the authorities & the law, but from neighbours or somebody calling the cops on you because you're bothering them & it just annoys them. Public nuisance, that's another one of the laws. There are so many laws that they've got that they can claim you're breaking & have you hauled off to jail & pay a fine--just for witnessing & talking to people about Jesus, like that boy on the sidewalk right in front of the Club! Oh my goodness, how could my hour be gone already? Well, this is pretty important! It's not Revelation, but I'll tell you, it's right down your alley where you're living right now & what you have to do, at least the rest of the Family does, & what all of you have done or you wouldn't be here, so you know what I'm talkin' about!
78. THERE ARE SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF LAWS! A neighbour can complain, all you have to do is have'm call the cops & complain & then it prompts an investigation. They've got to send out a policeman to find out what you're doing & take down all the notes & take down the neighbour's complaint. And usually they think it's justifiable, especially if they're an anti-hippie, anti-cult cop, especially if they're a good church Christian & in sympathy with the neighbourhood & not you. They'll usually take the neighbour's word for it & at the very least tell you to get out & "Don't ever let us see you around here again," or haul you off to jail in the cop car & make you stay there till you pay a fine, or maybe even throw you in for a few days, whatever!
79. ONE OF THE LAWS FOR WHICH THEY ARRESTED OUR 14 & 7 IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WAS TRESPASSING, & the main one was that you are not allowed to be within 100 yards of any public school or university unless you were there on business for the school or with the school or a student or teacher etc. I told the lawyers, "That's crazy! What about that big high school that's on that big boulevard? There are thousands & thousands of cars passing that school within a hundred feet every day! They're violating the law every time they drive by! They're not on business with the school!" Ah, but you see it's different, that was them, that was the System & that was their street & their cars & their people. We were somebody else! Those cars passing by weren't trying to proselytise their children, they weren't trying to infect them with this poisonous religion!
80. OF COURSE SO OFTEN THEY PASS THE LAW FOR SOME SEEMINGLY LEGITIMATE REASON FOR WHICH IT'S NEEDED, such as stopping guys passing out Communist literature or peddling dope right on the school grounds. So in order to nab'm, even if they couldn't prove that they were passing out literature or even peddling dope, they had something they could nail'm with, just the fact that they were on the school grounds & didn't belong there. Well, that seemed like a good law if you apply it to Communists & dope-peddlers, but they started applying it to us!
81. SEE, THE DEVIL IS SMART! HE DOESN'T GIVE A DAMN, HE'D JUST AS SOON PROMOTE DOPE PEDDLING & COMMUNISM, BUT HE GETS THEM TO PASS LAWS KNOWING IT'S EVENTUALLY GOING TO STOP & CATCH YOU!--Just like the enemies of Daniel did in the Bible, they passed the law which seemed good to the king, didn't seem to hurt anybody & he thought it was great, to only worship him & blah blah, but they did it just to catch Daniel, that was their main idea. (See Dan.6.) And that's why a lot of System laws are passed by enemies under seemingly good pretexts & excuses, because who they really want to get is you & me, God's people, who are in some small way violating that law, some little harmless way violating their System rules & their System garbage.
82. SO WATCH OUT THAT THEY DON'T GET YOU ON SOME LITTLE RIDICULOUS CITY ORDINANCE LIKE LITTERING OR SOMETHING ELSE LIKE THAT! You've got to be really careful. And as I've often said, "He who fights & runs away, lives again to fight another day!"--"A live coward is better than a dead hero," & "Discretion is the better part of valour!" I taught my kids from the very beginning: "If the cop tells you in one corner of the park, 'You can't do that here,' well, he didn't say you couldn't do it over there, so why don't you go over there & do it?"
83. AND USUALLY, THE ROMANS, AS WE CALL THE POLICE, REALLY DON'T CARE! They don't want to bother you & they don't even want to be bothered. It's a complaint that does it, somebody else that brings a complaint. It just caused a lot of our people in one area trouble & a lot of Homes had to move, because some devilish 10:36er parents got hot under the collar when their daughter joined the Family, a university graduate. They raised Hell with the authorities, who came out & raided a couple of Homes & investigated.
84. THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T EVER WANT TO OFFEND YOUR NEIGHBOURS OR ANYBODY IF YOU CAN HELP IT, NOT EVEN ON THE STREET CORNER, CERTAINLY NOT DOOR-TO-DOOR WHERE THEY'VE REALLY GOT YOU! They can accuse you of trespassing, annoyance, disturbing the peace, all kinds of things if you're right at their door. If you think it's safer going door-to-door, wait till you meet somebody that doesn't like you & doesn't want you doing that!--Not only to them, but they don't want you doing it at all because they belong to some other religion that hates you, so they just deliberately want to cause you trouble. Out on the street at least sometimes you're a little safer, you can run, or run around the corner or hide or something, but they can really give you trouble if you're right at their door. So don't think that's necessarily all that much safer, but at least you're a little more out of sight.
85. AND SOMEHOW OR ANOTHER, PEOPLE AT HOME, WHEN THEY'RE NOT IN A HURRY OR BUSY, SEEM TO BE A LITTLE MORE AT EASE & A LITTLE MORE HOSPITABLE. We found'm usually a little kinder & a little more willing to listen. Whereas running down the busy street in a hurry to catch a bus or get to work or school or something, sometimes they're really annoyed at your bothering them & stopping them at all. So watch out about that!
DON'T GIVE UP!
86. WELL, I GUESS THIS IS A CLASS ON WITNESSING TODAY! I didn't intend to do it, but I started off with telling some of you how I plan to teach you to cook my breakfast by the clinical method, the same way I teach folks to witness & the same way we used to teach them door-to-door. You just have them stick the Bible there & let them do the job & let them ask the people to read it & let them ask for a decision, & watch'm. Then if they don't succeed after the first try, as you're walking to the next house you give them a little counsel on what to do & not to do next time. And then try'm again, give'm another try!
87. JUST BECAUSE A GUY DOESN'T DO IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, ANY BEGINNER CAN MAKE A MISTAKE! Learning to ride a bicycle you can have quite a few tumbles before you learn how to balance. You don't just quit & give up & cry & never try again, you just keep trying!--Not cryin' but tryin'! When David was first learning how to ride a bicycle, the only place he had to ride it was in a tennis court. He had to ride it around & around the net posts & a few times he had a few spills--not many, he was learning pretty fast--but he got discouraged once or twice & cried a little bit & thought he was never going to learn how to ride a bicycle! "I can't, Grandpa! I can't stay up straight! I can't balance! I can't, it wobbles & it falls over & I fall with it! I can't!"--But he did! You'll never learn anything if you keep saying "I can't," you've gotta keep trying!
88. SO NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, WHEN YOU'RE WITNESSING OR LITNESSING OR GOING DOOR-TO-DOOR, WHATEVER IT IS, DON'T EVER GIVE UP JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FEW DEFEATS! Brother, if you ever witness to the Jews, that is the acid test, because you have almost nothing but defeats! It's the rarest time you ever have a success. So if you're gonna just keep on because you're a successful servant, you're never going to get anywhere. The Lord didn't say anything about being successful, He said, "Well done, thou good & faithful servant!" Even if you never have any successes, if you're a faithful witness & you did the job & you told'm, the rest is their funeral.
89. I TOLD YOU ABOUT THAT MISSIONARY THAT CAME OUT TO THE PIMA INDIANS IN ARIZONA WHERE WE LIVED, some of those Indians I got coming to church later on etc. that they threw me out for because I was bringing in the Indians & the dirty people & whatnot. This Presbyterian missionary first went to the Pima Indians when it was a big reservation, lots of Indians, when Arizona was only being sparsely settled by the Whites. God bless this dear, Bible-believin', Bible-packin' Presbyterian missionary! He went there alone! And of course the way the churches do it, they've got to have a little mission or a little chapel or something, & he built this little chapel by hand himself, kind of like I was building my church. That's why I heard the story, somebody told me about how he'd first come there, like I was doing, building a church.
90. BUT THE INDIANS JUST LAUGHED AT HIM & MADE FUN OF HIM! They were all heathen, pagans, they worshipped the Devil & evil spirits & all kinds of idols & whatnot in those days. They're a little more civilised nowadays, they worship different kinds of idols, the same kind of idols the White people do!--Cars & TV & liquor & money, etc. But in those days they were still practicing their Indian rites & the medicine man would stir up trouble against him & he had a lot of persecution.
91. HE WITNESSED ON THAT RESERVATION FOR NINE YEARS BEFORE HE HAD ONE SINGLE CONVERT! Nine years he plowed & he toiled & he sweated & he sowed & he watered & he prayed!--Nine years! He built a little chapel single-handed all by himself with nobody's help, the Indians wouldn't even help him do that. Even the ones that got friendly were afraid to help for fear of the others. But he finally had some salvations. They watched him for nine years & they saw his life & his sweet Christian spirit & they felt his love & they felt the power of the Spirit of God until they finally were convinced, "This man is either a god or an angel or he is really what he says he is, he's really a Christian"--& the kind of Christian that they learned to admire. And when he finally got the first salvations, then the people just began to flood into his little chapel & he had a tremendous harvest, a tremendous reaping! But it took him nine years of preparation, nine years of work.
92. SO DON'T GIVE UP JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FEW LITTLE DEFEATS! We're so used to being successful, we're almost appalled by a defeat! We're so used to winning souls & having success that we're kind of taken aback & startled & sometimes discouraged because we have some little defeat or a little trouble or a little persecution or a little tough time winning a soul or the cop gives us a little trouble on the corner or some old [EDITED: "lady"] socks us over the head with her purse, as has happened quite a few times, or after we've witnessed to some neighbour at their door, they slammed the door in our face & we went next door & they knew we were next door & called the cops on us & we think it's terrible! "Oh my, we're suffering persecution!" That's nothing to what some people have suffered & some people will yet suffer!
HOW NOT TO WITNESS!
93. SO IT'S A DANGEROUS BUSINESS WE'RE IN! I WOULDN'T SUGGEST OR COUNSEL OR ADVISE YOU TO PULL SOME OF THE TRICKS THAT I DID! I got arrested a few times, but thank God, I never got taken to jail or even fined for it. But some of our split-offs did, dear old Joab & Joel & what was the other guy's name, the false prophet? (Maria: Jim Ballister.) All of our backsliders got together, formed their own group & picked on the biggest church in San Francisco! They'd heard we'd done things like that & some of them had even been doing it with us, but we usually did have a little more common sense.
94. WHEN WE WENT INTO THOSE CHURCH SIT-INS WE JUST WALKED IN QUIETLY, SAT DOWN QUIETLY & BEHAVED OURSELVES, WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. I'd learned by that time it doesn't pay to stand up & argue with the preacher before his congregation, he doesn't like that. And there are laws against it & it's pretty rough. So I counselled the kids, "Now don't say anything! You can say 'Praise the Lord' & 'Amen' quietly, since some of them aren't used to it, but just sit down & be quiet & just listen." Our very presence there was enough of a testimony & a witness, to see 50, 75 or 100 hippies walking in down the aisle when most of the time a hippie never came to church! A lot of them had signs on the front door: "No bare feet!" They didn't want to say "No hippies," that would be discriminatory, prejudice, but "no bare feet" was one way to keep'm out of the restaurants & out of the churches etc. So we all wore sandals! And we kept quiet & tried to behave ourselves, but even that didn't always do it.
95. JIM BALLISTER & HIS OUTFIT, THEY STOMPED INTO THE BIGGEST CHURCH IN SAN FRANCISCO, Cathedral Methodist or something like that, with their rods thumpin' on the floor! About 30 or 40 of them walked right up into the pulpit, & the preacher I guess got scared & backed up! They walked into the pulpit & Jim Ballister took this great big jug & threw it down on the floor, crash, & it broke all to smithereens! They could have gotten him for littering, disturbing the service, trespassing, there's no end to the laws they could have gotten him for even if he hadn't done what he did! But then he started prophesying & preaching. Well, all he said was true, a passage somewhere there where I think Jeremiah said, "I shall dash them as a potter's vessel in pieces, I shall break them," etc., Scriptures against America & against the System & all that stuff. (Jer.19) Well, some watchdog of the faith phoned the police, & as they were marching out the cops were just waiting for'm & loaded'm up as they came out.--And the leaders of the outfit spent six months in jail just for that.
96. THEN THEY CALLED ON ME & WANTED ME TO TRY TO HELP GET'M OUT, BAIL'M OUT OR SOMETHING! I said, "Listen, you know what the rule is, We never post bail, we never pay fines." That was our rule in that day, anyhow, because we didn't have the money, we couldn't! I told my kids, "If you ever get arrested, you're just going to have to sit it out & cool it out in the cooler, because we haven't got the money to pay bail or fines or anything!" With the Costa Mesa 14, there were some school teachers there who sympathised with us & that came down & paid some of their bail to get some of the girls out. You never know who your friends might turn out to be!
KEEP PUSHIN' POSTERS!
97. WELL, I'VE BEEN WAY TOO LONG, BUT THAT WAS KIND OF A LESSON ON LITNESSING, that you don't start doing that sort of thing the first time, you don't take the babes out & expect them to do that kind of thing. A student has to learn, whether it's learning, cooking, doctoring, witnessing or whatever it is. Some of those newcomers rushed in where angels feared to tread! They were trying to mimic us & things we did, but they didn't know how to do it & they got in trouble. So it's best to watch the expert, the old veteran soldier who has survived many a battle & lived to tell the tale, you'd better watch & see how they do it!
98. THIS IS WHAT I'VE TOLD OUR MISSIONARIES GOING TO THE FIELDS, "LISTEN, DON'T YOU LET THOSE NEWCOMERS GO RIGHT OUT WITNESSING RIGHT AWAY AT ALL! You keep'm in for several weeks even to teach'm the customs & the language & the counting, the numbers, the money, how to witness & how not to witness. Teach'm the religions & teach'm all the things they need to know about witnessing in this foreign country before you let'm go out. Then when they do go out, you go with'm, an older brother with a newcomer, & let'm watch you. Don't just turn'm loose, or they really will get in trouble. And once they've really learned from the experts & have learned to be expert in it, then you can let'm go.--Otherwise, watch out! It's dangerous business out witnessing, if you don't do it right you can get burned. So watch your step!" GBY! ILY! I'm sorry--well, no, I'm not sorry, I think you probably needed that lesson & maybe the Family needs it. They're going out again on the streets with these posters & everything so I guess the Lord knew they needed it! TYL! PTL! Hallelujah!
99. YOU'VE ALL DONE SOME WITNESSING & LITNESSING, HOW MANY OF YOU THINK YOU COULD USE THOSE POSTERS IF YOU WERE A LITNESSER? Do you think they'd really go? Think you could sell'm? (Fam: Oh yes!) Do you think they ought to get better donations than you used to get for a little old eeny-weeny-teeny-bikini-size tract? Well, that's when I finally put a stop to Jethro & the Evil Magician, when I saw those--not mini tracts--but micro tracts they were getting out! Boy, what skinflints, getting so much money from the people & giving them almost nothing in return! You give'm nothing, you'll get nothing! God's Word tells you "with what measure ye mete into other men's bosoms, they shall mete it again to you." (Mat.7:2) If you give them something really worthwhile, a real nice pretty poster or pretty picture, they're going to give you something worthwhile.
100. I'M EXPECTING THESE COLOUR POSTERS TO REALLY GO OVER! I THINK PEOPLE ARE GOING TO REALISE THEY'RE WORTH SOMETHING! They can't just give you a nickel or a dime or a quarter, I have a feeling a lot of people are going to give dollars & five dollars & whatever the coinage of their realm is. You're going to get more! People are going to realise it's valuable, it's really something! You're out there with something that's pretty enough to put on their wall, a picture that's pretty enough to frame! They couldn't get it for nothing, not even at the dimestore, & yet it's beautiful! I think you're going to get some good donations, don't you? I believe they're really going to go over, I'm expecting it, or I don't think the Lord would have let us get into it.
101. THESE POSTERS ARE BETTER THAN ANYTHING WE'VE EVER PUT OUT! They're going to attract more attention, I think they're going to be a sensation! If a little black-&-white copy could so impress that Brasilian journalist, that columnist with such impact that he persuaded his editor to put a whole page in the newspaper about it & wrote in such glowing terms about it & even reprinted some of the pictures, I believe these posters are going to have a tremendous impact! I think it's our lit of the Last Day! If nothing else gets out, I believe they're going to get out! If nothing else goes, I think they'll go!
102. READY FOR THE KINGDOM PRAYER? ARE YOU READY FOR THE KINGDOM? (FAM: YES!) WHAT DO YOU MEAN? YOU ARE THE KINGDOM! YOU'VE GOT THE KINGDOM! PTL? So if it's the Kingdom Prayer, it must be our prayer since we're the Kingdom! We are the Kingdom of God! The Kingdom of God's within us, it's here already! We don't have to wait till we go to Heaven & see the Capital. Even though we're living way out here in the country in the boonies, we know what the Kingdom's like because we're living in it & it's living in us! PTL? So let's pray the prayer the King taught us to pray! (Prays the Kingdom Prayer) Amen. Do bless these, Lord, & keep them safely this day & make them a blessing in all the work that they do, Lord. Help them to get much accomplished in spite of the late hour, for Thy glory & for the sake of others, Lord, in Jesus' name. We thank You for how You have kept us, Lord, & have kept our witness going on, these who are responsible for the witness of thousands in hundreds of places! TYJ! PTL! Amen! ILY! Lord bless you all! TYL!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
