HomeARC ML 2409
SPIRITUAL BABIES! 1/88--Don't Expect Too Much!--It Takes Time!--A response to reports from Marianne re: her team's new Club ministry! DO 2409
1. The thing to do is to give the lit to the men, make it available. Don't push it too hard. Just give it to them & when they feel the need for it, they'll read it. They may not even admit it or want the girls to know that they're hooked. Like the Jews, they never want to admit that they're sold. They could be secretly reading it all the time & never even admit it.--Especially those big businessmen, important people. They're not going to act like little school boys & say, "Yes, I did my lesson, now give me another one!" You just need to give it to them & make it available & hope & pray that they'll read it. They could very tactfully ask them sometimes, "Did you read that little thing I gave you?--It had the answer to your question about this or that."
2. The Japanese are so much like the Jews, it's amazing! They've just about gotta be Jews! They're so hard to sell & even if they're sold, they don't want to admit it. You've just got to keep on sowing the Word, being patient, just like a mother with a little baby, & they're almost as slow to learn. But if they're really born, genuinely born-again, they should be hungry.--Only unlike little natural human babies, they're old & proud & don't want to admit they're hungry. But when they get home alone, I'm sure if they're really hungry they'll read it. (Maria: Some of them don't get hungry until they really get into a tight spot, too, like that dear doctor they wrote us about, the man who had to get in a motorcycle accident & land in the hospital for a month before he'd listen! Maybe now he'll be more receptive!)
3. Don't forget, for nine months the baby never admits it's hungry, but it's absorbing all the time. It never yells or screams or cries & demands food, it's quite silent, but it's slowly growing. Look at it that way. It takes nine months for a human baby to grow from conception when the seed first takes root, or begins to take root. It takes nine months of quiet, patient nurturing, feeding, even silently, before the baby is grown strong enough to really be born, to come out in the open & confess that he is born & alive & cry for food, admit he's hungry!
4. How long have they nurtured some of those men since they started planting the seeds? Have they nurtured any for nine months? They haven't even been there that long! But with some of the people who have been there, it's just about taken that long or longer for some of the Seed they've sown to grow until it came to full birth. The Japanese are just like the Jews & they're going to have to be really patient.
5. You've just gotta go slow & not be too pushy. I think some of you mothers are in such a hurry to have babies born you just want to push them out prematurely, & it's not very safe to have premature babies. It's better that they get fully developed inside, out of sight, unapparent really, in a sense in your heart, safe & well-protected & even silent, until finally you begin to really feel them, feel that they're really growing. The time will come when they really are willing to come out in the open & let it be known that they're really hungry & they're really born-again. It just takes time!
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WITNESSING IN A CHRISTIAN & A PAGAN CULTURE!
6. I think this is especially true with the Japanese. Don't expect so many instant salvations there like you got in places like the Philippines where they are supposedly instantly born again & are quickly willing to confess it, where they don't really have to pay a price for it, where they don't have to, you might say, really change their religion or receive persecution or criticism or scorn or ridicule for being a Christian.
7. Remember, those people in the Philippines have had the Seed for years, they've been in the pregnancy for years, you guys just came along & reaped'm, on which others had bestowed labours, on which you really bestowed no labour, but you entered into other men's labours.--John 4:38. They've heard the Gospel, they've heard it on television there, they've heard it in some of the churches, they've read it in literature. The Philippines has been sown for years & years & the Seeds have had a chance to develop & be conceived & get conceptual concepts of the Truth constantly growing in them. So you come along & just shove'm out, you bring them to the birth, you get'm to confess openly. You give them a shove & they pop out!
8. The Seed's been growing in some of those people for years, in fact some of them are probably even already saved because of their faith. They just didn't know how to express it. They didn't know how to actually confess it, come out in the open with it. They really didn't hardly know what they were doing until you came along & pushed them out, shoved them out, got them to come out in the open & holler & confess their faith, confess that they're saved & born-again.
9. The Japanese people have never really known the Truth or heard the Truth, hardly ever. They don't even know Who Jesus is supposed to be! They don't even understand what it's all about, you have to explain it to them from scratch. They don't even know they need Him. They're so self-satisfied & self-righteous.
10. Whereas all those old rascals you were reaching in the Philippines have heard the Truth for years & they know they're all guilty sinners, they know they've been violating the rules & breaking the laws & are sinning & sinners. They all feel guilty, they know they're guilty, they know they're sinners, they know they need to be saved, they know they need Jesus! They've had the Seeds for a long time, you just have to push'm to open confession. You just have to give'm a shove with a little prayer to say it out in the open, confess it & openly cry out for Salvation! So it's easy to bring them to the birth, you can walk right into their office & sit down with them & get them born right on the spot, because the ground's already been prepared & plowed & fertilised & watered for many years with their Christian culture.
11. The Scripture says that "one planteth, another watereth", & you come along & reap it!--1Cor.3:6. That's all you've been doing in the Philippines. You didn't have to spend very much time planting the Seed or watering or anything, you just come along & reap it! For years missionaries & even their churches have in a sense planted the Seed of faith in Christ & God & the Bible & the knowledge of sin. If there's anything the Catholic church preaches, it sure preaches the knowledge of sin & the fear of Hell! They just don't know how to get saved, they don't know how to push them out. So you just come along & reap, you just come along & give them a shove & out they pop, with open confession, open crying out to the Lord to save them. Simple! Easy!
12. It's a great place to reap! The Seed's been sown for years, hundreds of years in the Philippines! The same thing is true in other Christian cultures like Latin America. I never saw people so easy to lead to the Lord as the Latin Americans, Catholics! Even Americans in the U.S., even the English, they've had the Message for centuries, generations, all you have to do is come along & tell'm to come on out! "Come on out in the open, confess it, pray a little prayer, take the final step, receive Him now, pop out, be born again!"
13. The Japanese are almost as tough & hard as the Jews! At least they should be a little easier than the Jews, unless they are Jews, of course, & a lot of them are! With the Jews you have a lot of opposition to overcome, many generations & centuries, at least two millenniums of hard-hearted resistance & propaganda against Jesus, teaching that they should hate Him, that He's the false Messiah, a usurper & an impostor!
14. The Jews teach their children: "Jesus is the One Who caused you all this trouble you're having, Jesus is the One that's responsible for all your problems & troubles & persecution you're getting from the Christians in the churches, the Gentiles, the Goys! He's the One that's responsible for it all!" So their little children are taught to hate Jesus & use His name for a curse word from the time they're born! And they are under the curse: "His blood be upon us & upon our children!"--Mat.27:25. They are under the curse, they're very hard to get saved, to get them to admit that their greatest enemy is their Saviour!
15. At least you don't have to overcome that in Japan! They don't have any particular hatred for Jesus or opposition to Jesus. It's just sort of a nil field, they're not necessarily for Him or against Him. You can't hate somebody till you know him. The Jews know about Jesus, they know all the Scriptures, they know all about what He's supposed to be & Who He's supposed to be. They in a sense know Him & hate Him!
16. It reminds me of what that guy said who used to be the head of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. He said, "All those years when I was teaching people there was no God & they shouldn't believe in God or the Bible or Jesus, I knew there was a God all the time, I just hated Him & I wanted to teach everybody else to hate Him!" He knew there was a God! "Only the fool hath said in his heart there is no God!"--Psa.14:1. He was no fool!
17. But the people in Japan know so little about Him, how can they hate Him? They know so little about Him, how can they love Him? You have to start from scratch teaching them Who Jesus really is & even Who God is! You've just gotta tell'm about Jesus! My goodness, how can you on the spot expect them to pray a little prayer real quick & accept Jesus as their Saviour? (Maria: But some of them do!) It's amazing! They're so enthralled with you & your joy & happiness & radiant face, they want so much what you've got, they're willing to say anything, pray anything & do it on the spot, even though they don't know what they're doing!
SOW THE SEED,THEN HAVE A LITTLE PATIENCE!
18. But if you're going to have them really born alive & not still-born, you're going to have to make sure they know what they're doing! You've got to base it on the Scripture! You've got to tell them, "This is what God said, this is His Word! He promised that if you'd do this, He'd do that!--That if you'd believe in Jesus, receive Him as your Saviour, you're saved & you'll go to Heaven! You've got to plant your faith in this Word, in this verse. Now, you've prayed, you've received Jesus, how do you know you're saved?" They've got to be able to at least quote some little tiny bit of Scripture, they've got to have at least one verse, one phrase. "'He that believeth on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life!'--John 3:16. Jesus said if I'd believe on Him I wouldn't go to Hell, I'd go to Heaven, & I believe that!"
19. They have to have faith in God's Word! They've got to believe at least one phrase of a verse!--By faith! "'Saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves, it is a gift of God!'--Eph.2:8,9. God promised He'd give me Salvation if I'd believe it. Okay, I believe that verse, I believe that phrase! Jesus said, 'He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life!'--Jn.3:36. I believe on Him, & it says I have everlasting life, so I believe it, I'm going to Heaven!"
20. It may take awhile to get'm to really have that conviction in their own hearts to really believe the Word! "Faith cometh by hearing the Word" (Rom.10:17), believing the Word, & that's something that only a miracle of God can do, you can't do it. All you have to do is present the Word, & God is the One Who has to put the faith in their heart. You don't put the faith in their heart, you put the Word in their heart. They have to respond with the life by faith.
21. When a woman conceives it's because the egg is already there. The man just sows the seed & it reaches the egg. The egg of the possibility, the egg of the opportunity, the egg of the potential is already there, God has put it there. You just sow the seed & the seed finally reaches the egg. It doesn't even reach it in a few minutes sometimes. Sometimes it takes weeks. Science has proven that the sperm can survive for 2 or 3 weeks sometimes before it actually reaches the ovum & penetrates it & the child is conceived. It may take some of those Seeds you've sown several weeks before they finally reach the potential that God has placed there, the possibility of the faith that God has put there, the potential faith, the potential egg, ready to be conceived, ready to be penetrated with the Word, with the Seed.
22. So have a little patience! Your job is not making them believe, believe it or not!--Only God can make them believe! Your job is just to sow the Word, sow the Seed, & if there's an egg there, then they'll finally receive it. It may take awhile, you may have sown the Seed for several weeks or even months before it finally takes root, before God is able to persuade them to believe. Only God can make them believe, only God can give them faith. (Maria: We just have to pray for them.)--Amen!
23. Faith is a gift, God's Word says so!--1Cor.12:9. He doesn't necessarily give it to everybody you give the Word to, either. He doesn't necessarily give it to everybody that you give the Seed to. Not all seeds are received & not all seeds penetrate & conceive. But then sometimes it takes weeks or months, it might even take years in the case of some! You just have to be patient. For goodness sake, at least be as patient as a mother who has conceived a human baby! It takes nine months before she's able to bring it to the birth. All they have to do is continue to receive the Seed & let it be sown, in this case by you.
24. If you want to follow the human parallel, you provide the fertile ground in a way for the seed. God is the One Who is your Husband who sows the Seed in you, & you are the fertile ground that receives it & finally it springs forth. Well, they are the same: If they're the Bride of Christ, if they're going to be the one who receives the Seed & they're going to be brought to the birth, born again, then you're going to have to be patient, especially in this case, because they have no concept. It's strange how that word is related to conception. They have no concept of the Seed or the Word or Jesus. You have to keep sowing that Seed so they'll begin to understand. In a sense you have to keep painting a picture for them. You just have to keep sowing the Seed. You're just a vehicle, really. God is the One Who has given the Seed, & you just bear it to them & plant it, & whether it grows or not is up to the Lord and them. They have to be fertile ground & it has to be received & believed.
25. It's strange, we are both the Bride of Christ, & yet we're also His babies. We are His Bride as a whole, but all these little ones are His babies that are born of the Bride. But you've just got to be patient. It takes awhile for them to even understand or comprehend. It takes awhile for God to bring about that faith in their hearts. They can't be expected to believe something they don't even know anything about. You have to give the Word time to take root! You've got to give them time to conceive. You've got to give the Bride time to let the Seed take root & conceive & grow until he or she becomes a full-grown fetus, a baby, fully developed, big enough, strong enough & developed enough to be able to come out in the open & confess he's really a baby, born, out in the open!
26. You might be nurturing that Seed for many months before it's able to come to the birth. They might have even prayed the first time you met'm, but didn't really know what they were doing. You've got to gradually feed them & show them what they did. They received the Seed, that's all, & it has to take time to grow, until they really come out into the open, to the birth, & are genuinely born-again, where they can cry aloud & proclaim it, confess it! One of the first things a baby does when he's born is holler, confessing he's born & a human being & hungry & wants his mother & wants to be fed!
27. Just be patient, give it time! Those people really don't know anything about the Lord or Jesus or God. All they've heard about is Christianity, that there's another religion that has some temples sort of like theirs where those people go & do their praying to their gods. They just figure you're another religion, you just don't happen to worship the same gods.
JESUS: IN A CLASS BY HIMSELF!
28. You've got to show them that that's not it! Churchianity is not it! Christianity is not just another religion. It's kind of like the teacher of philosophy at the college who was listing all of the various great teachers & philosophers. I think it happened in China. He knew there was at least one Christian student in his class, so to please him he put Jesus at the head of the list, & he smiled contentedly that he had pleased the student, the Christian boy. Instead of that the Christian boy ran forward & said, "Oh no sir, no sir, He's not at the head of the list!" And He erased Jesus' name & he said, "He's not even on the list of philosophers!" And he put it way over on another big side of the board. He said, "Jesus is not a philosopher, He's not just a teacher, He's not just another god, He is the only Saviour, the only One Who died & was resurrected! All the rest of them died & are dead!" Jesus is in a class all by Himself! He is the only true Saviour, Son of God! He's not just a philosopher, not just another teacher of ethics.--Christianity is not just another system of ethics. Well, Christianity may be, but Jesus isn't!
29. Tell me what other religion, any other religion on Earth whose teacher & proponent & head who is now worshipped, which other one died & was resurrected?--Not one! None of them even claim that they were resurrected. Only Jesus, the Son of God, was resurrected, & therefore proved that He's truly God & truly supernatural above them all! He's not even on the same list, He's the only Saviour! "There is no other mediator between God & Man."--1Tim.2:5. He is "the Way, the Truth & the Life, no one cometh unto the Father but by Him!"--Jn.14:6. He's the only Way! "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ & thou shalt be saved!"--Acts 16:31.
30. That's the only way you're gonna be saved, not by believing on Buddha, Confucius or any one of the 14,000 Hindu gods or Mohammed or Moses or anybody else! There's no one else you can believe in & be saved, but to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then thou shalt be saved!" "He is the Way, the Truth & the Life, no man cometh unto the Father but by Him." "He is the only Mediator between God & man, the Man Christ Jesus", the Son of God!--The only One Who died for your sins, took your punishment for your sins & rose again, the Son of God, to sit on the right hand of the Father as King of kings & Ruler of all! Jesus is the only Saviour, the only true God, the only One Who can save you!
GIVE THE SEED TIME TO GROW!
31. All of this is very hard for them to believe, it takes time, & only God can actually have them conceive the faith. You have to sow the Seed, you have to bring them the Word, but only God can give the faith.--And, of course, that depends on whether they receive it or not. But if they receive that Seed, if they're fertile ground, good ground that God has prepared in advance, that God knows is going to be receptive, they will receive it & they will conceive & they will eventually be born!
32. But don't expect it all to happen overnight in one night's meeting! They may be praying that little prayer just to please you, not because they understand it, maybe not even because they believe it! They're just doing it to be polite. That's how the Orientals are! They'll do it just because you ask them to, not necessarily because they really believe it. It's nice for you to be able to persuade them to do it, & it's very polite for them to please you to go ahead & pray it. (Maria: And they really do want what you have.) And they may do it very sincerely because they want to please you & they want what you've got. They believe you because you said it. And that's a little tiny grain of mustard seed faith!
33. But you've got to give it time to grow. They're not born yet, really. Jesus said, "You must be born again."--Jn.3:3. Well, how are you going to give it time to grow? How are you going to give it time to be conceived & grow & be nurtured until they're big enough, strong enough & really prepared to be truly born again?
34. I think we try to rush things too fast & make believing too easy sometimes, "easy-believism" as they call it. It is possible, especially if people have already had Christian background & Christian training or Christian culture, they know all these things, they believe there's a God, like the Catholics. They believe in the Bible, they believe Jesus, they believe it all, only they've never personally received Him. So you've got most of the work done for you, already ripe & fertile ground that is already all prepared, cultivated, fertilised & watered. All you have to do is plant the seed & it almost instantly pops out, sprouts out! The little sprout just goes boom, out of the soil & the baby is almost an instant birth because their faith has already been there for a long time. You just have to bring it out. Instant Salvation!
35. In a sense, the baby has been in there & growing for a long time, you just come along & reap it! You just come along & tell the Mother to give it a push & out it pops! They pray the prayer & they believe the Word, they know they're saved, & there they are, there's the baby! But then you still have to feed it & still have to nourish it & cherish it & help it to grow strong. When that baby's first born, he's not able to stand a lot of persecution & opposition & hardship, he has to have a lot of love & tender loving care & nurturing & feeding & loving till he grows strong enough to grow up & start witnessing to others, start planting the seed in other mothers.
36. Some of you expect the poor fellows to grow up overnight! You can't understand why he's not really reading the Word & why he's not witnessing to his friends, why he's not tithing & giving & doing his share! What baby does his share of the housework? What baby does his share of the litnessing? What baby does his share of fund-raising & giving? (Maria: A baby is very selfish!) What baby does anything but beg for food & just grow! What baby starts walking as soon as he's born? What baby starts talking as soon as he's born? What baby starts dressing himself as soon as he's born?--Clothing himself, feeding himself? What baby has to do anything but just be cared for when he's first born?
37. Don't expect so much! Don't expect such rapid growth! Some of you people expect the baby to be born full-grown, ready to go to work, dressing & feeding himself! You've got to keep feeding him! You're the mother, you've got to feed him! He can't feed himself, all he can do is receive it! (Maria: Babies are very selfish, they just take all the time. They can't give yet.) They can't even do a thing for themselves, much less for anybody else! You've got to give them time to grow! Don't expect so much! Certainly don't expect too much! Some of you expect them to be born full grown, ready to go to work & ready to walk & talk & feed themselves & dress themselves & get out & have children of their own--boom--overnight, baby wonders, instant adults! Why do you think the Lord compared it to a baby being born?
38. (Maria: We've always expected so much of our disciples who join the Family fulltime, the first day they'd be out there witnessing.) They're usually from a Christian culture. Most of the salvations & the people that we have in the Family, let's face it, were themselves born in a Christian culture, in America, the Americas or Europe, all Christian cultures with a knowledge of the Bible & God & Jesus & at least a simple knowledge of Christian doctrine, a knowledge of sin, guilt, Hell & the alternative, Heaven, if they'll personally receive Jesus. Let's face it, they've had missionaries in North America, South America, Europe & the Philippines, even some places like India where they've had 200 years of Christianity! In many places even individuals have had a knowledge of Christianity for years & are easy to lead to the Lord, just to take that final personal step of personally receiving Him.
THE CHURCHES' FAILURE AND POOR TESTIMONY!
39. But in Japan & places like that, you're bumping into raw heathen! In many places you're bumping into absolutely raw heathen who know little or nothing about Christianity, except what they've heard or seen, & most Christianity usually hasn't been too good a testimony about faith in Jesus! The church people & their churches haven't been too much like the Lord! They haven't shown too much concern about the unsaved.--Many of whom don't even know how to be saved themselves, the Christians they've seen, the churches they've been acquainted with.
40. Multitudes of the missionaries sent to the foreign fields of the World have come from churches who don't even know anything about Salvation! They're nothing but social gospel preachers preaching, "Help one another, love one another, try to better the state of the poor, give'm schools & hospitals & orphanages & take care of their bodies. Give them doctors & nurses & clinics." They've heard about all that, they've seen that, but they haven't seen much real faith, they haven't seen many true Christians, real genuine believers who are born again, saved.--Much less have they seen many grown mature Christians who know how to tell them how to be saved!
41. What little they've seen of Christianity has certainly not been enough to win or convert them!--Christians who don't even know how to be saved themselves! Christians pretending to be Christians, even thinking they're Christians, just because they're church members & came from a church & believed in God & Jesus & the Bible.--Such as the many good Catholics who have never been saved themselves, they're not even born again themselves & they wouldn't even know how to get anybody else saved!
42. Let's face it, that's the kind of Christians they've seen! That's the kind of Christians they know, if they know any. The vast majority of Christians are not even saved! The vast majority of missionaries those Christians have sent to the fields are not saved either, think of it!--Don't even know how to be saved, & certainly don't know how to get anybody else saved! So what kind of a witness are they? What kind of a testimony are they? What kind of spiritual mothers could they be? They don't even know how to be born again themselves, never have been!
43. The vast majority of missionaries sent to the fields from these formal modernistic churches, even many Holiness type churches whose religion depends on their self-righteousness, they can be saved one minute & lost the next!--That's not Salvation! Even they don't know how to be saved! Sometimes Mama & I wonder about some of the parents & Christians we've known in the past, whether they were even saved at all or not, because they didn't really believe in genuine Eternal Salvation! They constantly doubted their own Salvation, they constantly were afraid they were unsaved & lost again because they didn't have real good staunch permanent faith in the Lord's ability to save them & keep them saved!
44. So what do you expect those poor heathen to know about Christianity anyhow?--When the vast majority of the Christians they've seen & known aren't even saved themselves & wouldn't even know how to get'm saved! You're the first one that's come along & just preached Jesus, & that only He can save you & keep you saved! It doesn't depend on your own good works, your own righteousness, your own merits, or demerits, it just depends on Jesus! Your Salvation just depends on Him. All you have to do is receive Him & believe it & then start growing from there.
CONCEPTION CAUSING CONCEPTS!
45. They're not necessarily going to pop out the minute you sow the Seed!--Not in Japan & not in many countries like it, & not in many places of other religions. You're going to have to patiently, gently, lovingly keep sowing the Seed & nurturing it & cultivating it, fertilising it, watering it with your tears of concern & love till it finally grows enough that it's even able to be born!--Give it time!
46. A lot of those people prayed the prayer just because you asked them to, not because they understood what they were doing. You've got to keep sowing the Seed to give them the real faith for it to really conceive, to really conceive faith in them, to help them get a concept of what they're doing! That's conception! What is a concept? It's an idea, it's sort of a knowledge of what they're doing. What concept do they have of Christianity, Jesus, God, the Bible? What do they know about it? That's what conception is, it's to have a concept of something, to know something!
47. The Bible speaks about "& he knew his wife", which meant that he had given her a concept of his love, sown the seed to give her a concept, conception! "And Adam knew Eve, his wife, & she conceived & bare a son!"--Gen.4:1. The Seed you sow gives them a concept, the knowledge of the Truth through the Seed of the Word. So they get that concept, that knowledge, which helps them to conceive, conception, & then they can start growing!
48. In a sense, the dear little fetus is being force-fed. It has nothing in the World to do with feeding himself then. He's literally being force-fed. You've got to keep feeding them, you've got to keep giving them the Word & nourishing them, cherishing them, even before they're born! You've got to remember that, that that's the way it is.
49. In non-Christian cultures they haven't had all that knowledge, that conception of God & Jesus & sin & Salvation etc. In a sense, Christian cultures have already had concepts of the Truth, they have the knowledge, the conception of the Truth, in which case you might say it's already conceived & been developing but not born again yet. The Seed's been sown & the concept is there, conception has taken place, really. One sows, one waters & you come along & do the reaping, you push the baby out, you bring it to the birth by confession of faith. (Maria: But then God has to give the increase.)
50. God is the One that gives the increase! Quit trying to make'm grow! Quit trying to force'm to grow! Quit trying to insist that they grow up & "be a man"! It used to be a common saying in the States, that culture, "Aw, grow up! Why don't you grow up! Act your age!" Some of you have been trying to tell these poor guys, "Grow up! Act your age!" Well, what age are they? They're nothing but little babies, maybe they're not even born yet, & you're trying to get them to "Grow up & be a man, act your age, do your job, preach the Word, witness to your friends, lead them to the Lord, get'm saved!"
51. Most people don't have children of their own until they're full grown & married. You expect these little babies to go out & have children when they're still babies themselves, & some of them maybe not even born yet, they're just being conceived, getting conception, concepts of what you're talking about, & growing, not even ready to be born yet! Even if they prayed the prayer, that doesn't necessarily mean that they really know what they're doing, that they really have a concept or a conception. It may take awhile to even really get'm born, where they really know what they have done & what they are doing & that they are really saved, they are really born again! It's a slow affair.
52. (Maria: And even if they are born again, if they are only a little baby, it's almost like they're an orphan because they don't live in the Home with the loving caring parents, they live out there in the System by themselves!) Yes! You, their mother, can't even be there all the time to take care of them, it's pitiful! God bless some of you, you've gone & lived with them in order to be with them all the time & to care for them & nurture them & nourish them & feed them & protect them & love them so that they can grow. Some of our girls have lived with them until they've grown enough to have children of their own.
FEEDING, CARING FOR & RAISING BABIES--GIVE'M TIME!
53. It just takes time, you've got to be patient! It takes time for your babies even to become babies! And then after they've become babies, it takes time for them to grow up! Don't expect people of other totally different cultures & religions who have no idea of what being a Christian really is, who have no idea even Who Jesus is, Who God is, what the Bible is, nothing--don't expect them to grow up overnight & be instant Christians, even overnight babies! You've got to give them time. It's a long, slow, patient process. If you just think back & compare it to the conception & growth of a physical child, it takes time.
54. God never seems to be in a big hurry, except when He's angry, as I've said before. As my Mother used to say, it takes time for God to grow a flower, it takes time for God to paint a sunset each night, it takes time for God to grow a baby! You think you did it? No you didn't, God did it! You didn't grow the baby inside of you, God did it! You had little or nothing to do with it. All you did was furnish the ground on which to sow the seed. The Lord does the growing, He even does the conceiving & the birthing, He brings it to the birth.
55. You have some of the work associated with it, you feed yourself & that force-feeds your baby. (Maria: That's a good parallel too, you have to feed yourself in order to be able to feed the baby.) Amen! You'd better keep feeding yourself the Word so you'll have enough nourishment for the child! Some mothers in the animal world or the World of living things have to feed themselves first, to masticate & chew the cud, then they regurgitate that food & feed it to their babies, all nice & ground & mixed with their juices & everything, & feed it to the baby.
56. Let's face it, even after the baby's born, he is hungry, but you have to show him where it is, you have to put his mouth to it. He's got to learn to really take ahold & suck! Later on as it gets older, you've virtually got to force-feed him. You've got to prepare the food & spoon-feed it to his mouth. I've had to force-feed many a baby, shove it in his mouth, even when he didn't want it.
57. I used to distract their attention & go through all kinds of crazy antics! I'd pretend the spoonful of food was flying around like a bee & I'd go gyrating it around through the air & finally fly it into his mouth! He'd be so pleased & happy for me to give him this entertainment, he'd want me to do it again & he'd take another mouthful! A lot of your force-feeding has got to be almost entertaining & enjoyable! (Maria: Sugar-coat it!) Maybe add a little sugar, or honey in our case, & get him to eat it! (Maria: Make it easy to get at so he doesn't have to go really working for it.) Yes.
58. You've got to feed a baby yourself for a long time before he learns to feed himself. Don't expect newborn babies to be able to feed themselves, you're expecting too much! You've gotta force-feed'm! Do it with love & patience & hope that they'll be hungry enough to even at least be spoon-fed! If a baby is even willing to be spoon-fed, you're thankful that he's hungry enough to want to learn to eat it from the spoon.
59. So I think some of you are expecting too much of those unborn babies, & even of the newborn babies, in a culture which has not prepared them for it, ground which is not really prepared for it. You have to prepare the ground, you've gotta do it all! Nobody ahead of you has plowed the ground, broken up the soil, softened the surface. Nobody ahead of you has planted the seed or fertilised it or watered it or anything! You're starting with nothing but the bare soil, unprepared, unbroken, unfertilised & unwatered!
60. You're starting from scratch! You've got to scratch the soil first of all with the plow to make it open & receptive, to sow the seed, & then fertilise & water it until it bears fruit, until it grows, & finally it pops out of the soil where you can actually see it, pops out of the mother where you can actually see it & feel it. And then you have to take care of it, totally take care of it! The baby can do nothing for itself whatsoever, it's totally helpless!
61. Human babies are the most helpless babies in the whole World! Many other babies of other forms of life can immediately start helping themselves. You've watched the birth of animals, little horses can almost immediately stand on their feet, so can little goats & lambs & others, they can almost immediately walk! They still have to nurse their mothers, but they soon learn how to eat grass. I would say that most forms of animal life are born much better prepared to face life than the human babies & don't need so much absolute total care.
62. Little tiny baby puppies & kittens are almost as helpless, but even as soon as they're born they can crawl around, which is better than you can say for a human baby. He lies there flat on his back for weeks or months before he can even turn over! It takes months before he learns to crawl, more months before he can even stand up, & more time before he can start walking!--Human babies are the most helpless babies in the World!
63. Sometimes I think spiritual babies are even more helpless! So give'm time! Nourish, feed, love, care for, protect, help & give'm time to grow & get strong & learn. They have to learn all these things! They have so much to learn! Look how long it takes a baby to learn so many things, to even learn to eat, to feed himself. He has to learn to crawl, stand up, walk, talk, feed himself, dress himself, so much to learn!--Then learn to grow up to where he's old enough to help his brothers & sisters & to care for them.
64. It takes a long time before a child is that old & able to care for others. How long? How old does a child have to be to start caring for his baby brothers or sisters?--Years! Years before he's able to mind the baby or watch the baby, hold the baby's bottle, help the baby learn to walk. I'd say they have to be at least five or six years old.
65. So give'm time! For goodness sake, give those poor guys time! They're worse than babies, a lot of them haven't even been conceived yet, they haven't had enough Word to even produce conception! They have to get those concepts, those ideas, knowledge of what it's all about before conception even takes place. And then you've got to keep protecting & feeding & mothering until they're finally big enough & strong enough to be born, really born, & then they're totally helpless, you've got to keep taking care of them for years before they can do much for themselves.
DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH TOO FAST!
66. I think we're too impatient, I think we're expecting too much of heathen cultures! You expect instant adults. The minute they pray the prayer & receive Jesus you expect them to be full-grown immediately!--"Here's some literature, get out & start witnessing! Get out & start having babies yourself!" You're crazy! They're not ready for that!
67. Those from Christian cultures may be ready for that, because they've known the Truth for years. They've had some kind of a concept of the Word & the Truth, & maybe there's already been conception but they just haven't been born yet. You had to come along & reap'm, you had to come along & push'm out so they'd be born again! But even then they had pretty good ideas of what they were supposed to do & be & you right away had them virtually feeding themselves, walking, talking, helping others. (Maria: If they're in the Family, yes, & have constant 24-hour-a-day care. But if they're not, no matter what culture they're from, they can't usually stand on their own & have the strength & conviction to witness for a long time.) Yes.
68. Especially when they're full-grown men, full-grown adults already. They have had other ideas, other concepts, preconceived ideas about Christianity & Christians & Jesus & God & the Bible & their own religion & everything else. You've got a lot of work to do, a lot of digging to do to clear away the chaff & to clear away the debris & to clear away all the other junk before you can really start building. It's a monumental task, it's almost discouraging to even think of what a big job it is!
69. It's just a miracle of God that you got ahold of some of those young people when you first went to Japan or some of those countries.--And remember it was young people who didn't have so many preconceived ideas & weren't grown & hardened in a shell! They were young & fresh, teenagers, who were hungry & eager & empty. (Maria: Maybe that's why we haven't gotten any more disciples there for a long time, or very many, because we haven't gone to where they're young enough. We've been trying to get the older ones.)
70. Just remember the older ones are harder to get, they're hardened in the mold, hardened in the shell, & if you get one of those, you've really got something! It's a lot easier to go out & win little children to the Lord. But they may not really know what they're doing & they can't be much help right away. It's a lot easier to go out & win teenagers to the Lord. They don't know what they're doing either, but at least you can teach them what to do pretty fast & how to do it & be a help.
71. But the older people, middle-aged people, some actually old-aged people, you expect them to be instant adults! Just because they're grown up & mature & aged, middle-aged, old-aged, you expect them to instantly be conceived & born & matured & turn right around & start bearing others. You're really expecting the almost impossible! It's just a miracle of God we've had any salvations amongst older people at all, & with them you've got to be more patient you might say than with a baby! They're much more difficult to conceive & grow & even be born-again & to grow up. It's harder to learn when you're old, much harder, & it takes longer.
72. So don't expect too much! Don't expect more than is even possible with God! It's just a miracle of God that you've had the Salvations you've had amongst older people & that they've shown any signs of being genuinely born-again & being genuinely alive spiritually, & that they're even feeding at all from you, much less feeding themselves! And certainly when they're just spiritual babies you can't expect them to start showing the attributes of an adult, to get out & witness to others & win souls!
73. They may tell others of their experience, they may testify, they may give their own testimony & be thrilled about what's happened to them, if it's really happened. But in a country where they're of a totally different religion & everything else, their friends & family may think they're crazy! "What in the World did you become a Christian for?--Don't tell me you're a Christian!"
74. Mrs. Lydia is now admitting for the first time to her friends & neighbours where she lives that she's a Christian! They didn't even know she was a Christian! They turned around & said, "Oh, you're a Christian?" And for the first time, our people who are working with her there at the School have seen her come out & confess she's a Christian to some people! She's known the people in their clubs for years & they didn't even know she was a Christian, think of it!
75. So she's beginning to grow up too! She's beginning to become mature enough. But she's almost had to be forced to come out with it, confess it right in front of others, because our people insist on confessing Christ, they won't be shut up! So it's made her come out more & confess the Lord--to their surprise! However, that was just Christmas, but now for her to continue to talk about Jesus after Christmas, that's another thing!
76. So you've just got to give it time! Just think how long it's taken Mrs. Lydia to be willing to confess Christ to her friends, & she's been a Christian for a long time, born-again for years, actively helping other Christians & helping us & wanting us to witness & everything else. It's taken her a long time to get to the point of witnessing herself!
GET'M TO GIVE!
77. (Maria: People are so used to doing good works to gain favour of whatever it is, God or their system or something, that it would be almost easier to get them to give than it would to witness, because in a way, giving sort of salves their conscience. So at least we could tell them, "Okay, if you want to serve God, but you're not willing to go out & witness & tell everybody, at least you could give to help us to do it!")--Right!
78. In fact, I think it would be much easier to persuade most people to first give of their funds than to give themselves to the Lord! I think they can understand giving, contributing, donating to a worthy cause, like our children's School there in Japan. I think it would almost be better to ask them to give first & get saved later, believe it or not! I think they could be persuaded to give more easily than to get saved!
79. They understand giving, they understand donating, they do a lot of that in the East! They give to their religion & temples thinking they're helping some kind of a worthy cause, they're helping their religion, they're pleasing their gods, they're working their way to Heaven, they're earning merit, they're doing good works to make themselves more righteous & more worthy to be saved! They can understand giving more easily than getting saved! Maybe you ought to start working on the giving first, talking about the giving first in some ways!
80. (Maria: I think it depends on the individual. Because on the other hand, different people in Japan & Thailand have reported about a lot of people that in going out & giving them the Tapes & Posters & saying, "Wouldn't you like to buy Tapes & Posters, wouldn't you like to give to our Work" etc., they will many times flatly reject you. But if you'll try to get them saved, & they get saved, their whole attitude changes & then they'll give because the Holy Spirit works in their hearts.) That's fine, all right, whatever you feel led. (Maria: It might depend on the individual, whatever it takes.)
81. I wouldn't be surprised if you could at least get the goats to give! They'd rather give than get saved! (Maria: Yes, ha!--To salve their conscience. If you present them with the Lord first & then they don't want to take Him, they could sort of salve their conscience by giving.) Then they'd be more willing to give to get off the hook! (Maria: "Okay, how would you like to give?") "You don't want to give yourself, you don't want to get saved, okay, how about at least giving to this worthy cause then!"
82. As Fred used to say about people, "If you can't get them to go to the mission field, at least you can get them so convicted that they'll give their pants to have to keep from going!" If you can't get them saved, maybe you'll have to persuade them then, "Well, if you don't want to get saved, at least help us!--Give!" But it depends on the individual & the situation, the Lord will have to lead you, that's all.
THE BEST KIND OF MISSIONARIES:PATIENT, PLODDING FARMERS!
83. But don't be in such a big hurry that you think it can just be done overnight. Some of you think it can be done over one hour or a few minutes! You really expect miracles! Especially in a non-Christian culture, you've got to have more patience & take more time & do more cultivating, more sowing, more fertilising, more watering before you can expect to reap. Even the little plant has to come out as a little seedling & grow a few little shoots, & it takes a long time for it to grow before it can bear fruit & bring forth others. So have patience!
84. Be faithful, keep working at it, keep cultivating, breaking up the dry ground & sowing the seeds & watering them, fertilising & feeding, & you may have to do that awhile before you see the shoots coming up.--And certainly a long time before you can do much reaping. So praise the Lord, give it time! PTL! TYL! Amen!
85. I think maybe some of you need to realise you need patience. So don't give up. Just because they don't immediately accept the Lord, because they don't immediately respond, because they don't immediately show signs of conception, or even because they don't immediately receive the Seed, keep trying! How long does a man have to keep working on his wife before she finally conceives? It's a lot of hard work. Thank God He's made sex a pleasure or probably nobody'd do it! But it takes time & work even then!
86. Don't give up, don't lose patience, don't get discouraged too quickly & too easily. Just make up your mind it's going to take time & just be faithful & patient. I remember they asked one missionary, "What's the best kind of missionaries?--The bright boy wonders? The guys who know it all & have been through college & theological school & know all the answers & everything else?" He said, "No, we've found that farmers make the best missionaries. They're used to just plodding along & being patient, working hard, preparing the ground, sowing the seeds, fertilising, watering, taking care of the new little plants. They're the ones who really know how to just patiently plod along, & have lots of patience to wait for it to grow.--Farmers make the best missionaries!"
87. Well, you're going to have to sort of be a farmer now & learn how to be a patient plodding farmer. Just keep faithfully preparing the ground, breaking up the hard ground, softening it up with your tears, praying for it, watering it, fertilising it & being patient before you even see any signs of growth. With some seeds it's many days before you see any signs of growth. The seed's hidden in the soil & you don't know whether it's dead or alive, whether it's going to grow or not! But the thrill of every farmer is to finally see a little sprout pushing through the surface, & when you see that, you know it's alive, you know it's conceived & you know that it's growing! In a sense, when the shoot pushes through the ground it's like being born! You know then you've seen that they're really born-again & they're growing!
88. So be patient! Don't expect them to grow up overnight, immediately, start witnessing & passing out literature! You can be thankful if they even read it themselves! You can be thankful if they even feed themselves at all--you're probably going to have to feed them. How long does a human mother have to feed the child?--For nine months in her tummy, force-fed, without the child even being conscious of being fed.--And then for another 9 months or a year, being fed by the mother, unable to feed itself.
89. How old was your child when he first learned to feed himself? Do you remember? Well, most of them are usually at least a year old before they learn to spoon-feed themselves. You had to force-feed'm, spoon-feed'm yourself until they were about a year old & you finally taught'm to use the spoon. You finally got tired of doing it & insisted that they use a spoon.
90. I'll never forget Ho, I was the guy who taught him to feed himself, & trying to teach him how to learn to use that spoon was really a task of great patience & endurance! First he thought it was something to play with & the food was something to play with. And he dipped that spoon in there & he threw it around & he plastered the floor & the walls & once even the ceiling! He threw that food around with that spoon & thought it was quite a game, something to play!--Till I kept making him shove it in his mouth & he finally got the point that he wasn't going to get anything to eat unless he did it himself! It took a long time, nine months in the tummy & a year outside, nearly two years before he really learned to feed himself. So what are you expecting?
91. (Maria: The first missionaries to some non-Christian fields laboured for years before they had one convert! Most of our people would have given up way before then!)
92. I'll never forget the story about the Pima Indians on the Pima reservation near where I built that church at Valley Farms, Arizona. By that time the Pimas were all Christians & had churches of their own. But the first missionary, a Presbyterian missionary, a real genuine Christian, born-again & loved the Lord, who came there to work on this reservation with the Pima Indians, he worked there, he even built a little chapel & tried to get them to come to the chapel, to the sermons etc. They'd sometimes come & just sit there like bumps on a log, they didn't know what was going on.
93. He worked there for nine years before he had his first convert! (Maria: And that was in America!) Nine years on an Indian reservation in the U.S.A. before he had his first convert! So what do you expect? (Maria: I think Adoniram Judson in Burma worked 12 years before he had one convert! There have been stories of that over & over & over.) Especially on totally pagan heathen fields! This Presbyterian missionary of the Pimas was working with a people who were totally pagan, worshipped sticks & stones & were animists. (Maria: Worshipped the Devil.) Yes!
94. Working with totally heathen pagan religionists, you just can't expect instant believism, instant Salvation, instant birth, instant growth, instant full-grown Christians! You just can't expect it. You can be thankful if you get one saved eventually! These people like this Presbyterian missionary worked nine years before he got a single Indian saved! Adoniram Judson worked 12 years in Burma before he got a single Burmese saved! What are you expecting? I think some of you are expecting too much!
95. Thank God that some of them have heard a little bit about Christ & God & there has been a little bit of Truth that's been planted, but you just can't expect to come right along & reap instantly what others have not planted & what others have not watered, where others have not sown! You're just going to have to trust the Lord that you're doing the best you can & keep sowing!
96. You're just starting to sow a lot of Seed that may yet have to be watered & certainly will still have to be reaped! Maybe we won't reap a lot of this Seed we've sown by the millions of copies until the Millennium! You might reap some of it now, & it's a miracle you do. That's pretty fast. Even after 16 years in Japan we're still not getting much reaping.
97. (Maria: Like you said, one of the main ways of feeding a natural baby is virtual force-feeding. So if it just goes out in a Tape or a Poster & you never even see the person or never talk to them, never follow up on them, you can't expect them to be born!--Or to grow! Our Family has got to faithfully personally witness & follow up on people, they've got to do that.)
98. So what if they get a Poster & they pray the prayer out by themselves alone on the field? How would you expect them to grow? Here's the little baby born out there an orphan in a strange World with strange people! How much can you expect them to grow with nobody to feed them, nobody to care for them, nobody to nurture them, nobody to follow up on them? We've probably got a lot of poor little orphans & retarded children out there who just never got fed or cared for, even if they got born again. You need to find them & you need to follow-up on them, you need to feed them, you need to care for them & bring'm up! Bring'm to the point where they can care for themselves & for others, then they're an adult.
99. As they say, you're not really an adult until you've had children of your own. That's a long ways in the future for some people! They're not even a child yet, they're just babies! Some aren't even babies yet, they're just getting conceived. Some of them aren't even conceived yet, you're still sowing Seeds hoping one of them will spring to life!
100. So God bless you & help you & give you the patience of the plodding farmer. Don't expect too much. But have hope & prayer & faith to expect something for all your efforts. If you never see anything, then there must be something wrong. God will give you a little encouragement here & there. Once in awhile somebody will spring to life, somebody will pop out, & you'll see some results, thank the Lord! But don't expect too much in a heathen, pagan, totally non-Christian field. Just be patient & plod & keep praying!--In Jesus' name, amen! (Maria: Amen, prayer is a real key!)
101. The Lord has to do it, it's just your job to sow it & feed it! (Maria: And pray that the Lord will work in their hearts.) God has to give the growth, God has to give the increase! PTL! KEEP PUMPING IN THE SEEDS!--SOME ARE BOUND TO CONCEIVE! KEEP FEEDING'M & YOURSELF!--AND GIVE'M TIME TO BE BORN & GROW!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
