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"MARRIAGE PROBLEMS!"--MO's Worldwide Leadership Newsletter No.15--MO August 10, 1974 NO.314B--LTO
(Sorry it's a little late!)
Copyrighted August, 1974 by The Children of God
P.O. Box 31, London WC2E 7LX, England or GPO Box 3141, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936
Dear Family: Greetings in Jesus' Precious Name! Thank you again for your faithful communications, some of you being more faithful now than before since we mentioned your lack.
2. IT'S GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU MORE OFTEN NOW, but we are still waiting for some more personal word from some of you regarding your situation other than your good little logs bearing your sweet "Hi and Bye!" notations, particularly your personal explanations, regarding certain serious situations and your behaviour there and your reaction and conclusion in response to my recent dealing with you on it.
3. WE WILL BE VERY HAPPY TO HEAR THAT YOU HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT, and the fact that you have been doing some thing about it always sounds encouraging, but we would like a direct letter from you about it, or at least your side of the story, which we sometimes haven't heard. We love you dearly and hope you're getting things straightened out.
4. THIS WAS THE VERY KIND OF DANGEROUS FRATERNIZATION WHICH I WARNED YOU ALL ABOUT, but it seems we still have had a couple cases of it or so in recent months in spite of my serious warnings to you on the subject. The Lord must have known what was going to happen, 'cause many of you have been guilty of it since then, from what we've heard, in direct disobedience to my warning, which is going to leave a trail of broken hearts and broken lives, including your own, if you do not stop it!
5. IF YOU ARE TRYING TO USE ME AND MARIA OR ANYTHING WE HAVE WRITTEN OR SAID AS YOUR EXCUSE, YOU'RE WAY OFF THE BEAM, 'cause I warned you against this very thing time and again: Too much intimate fraternisation and too serious involvements with those outside the leadership, particularly some considerably beneath your station and position as leaders. This has already wreaked havoc in more than one case, and some of you are going ahead with it in spite of my explicit prohibitions, and sooner or later it's going to cause trouble and we shall all suffer the consequences.
6. WHAT I HAVE SAID ABOUT "ONE WIFE", AND "LAW OF LOVE "HAVE BEEN CARRIED TO THE EXTREME AND WITH THE WRONG SELFISH MOTIVES BY SOME, when these were intended to point up the need of total self sacrifice for the sake of God's work and other in the ultimate of sacrificial love! Instead, some of you have apparently, according to your own selfish desires, completely misinterpreted these Letters and are now yielding your members to nothing but carnal lust instead of sacrificing yourselves on the alter of God's service in service to those who really need and deserve help! I'm disappointed in you for this cause and hope that you will see the error of your ways and make the necessary changes in your statuses to rectify it!--Amen?
7. YOU ALL ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE, AS I LAID DOWN THE RULES IN BOTH THE ABOVE LETTERS AND OTHERS ON MARRIAGE and laid down the laws on this regarding too much freedom in respect to "all things" and too much fraternisation of the leadership with weaker babes, and I warned you firmly about it and definitely forbade certain aspects.
8. BUT SOME OF YOU HAVE FLAGRANTLY VIOLATED THESE ADMONITIONS and it has caused a great deal of trouble both to you and others and us, as well as to the Lord and His Work. I'm not speaking of just one case, but at least several that I have heard of in which I felt they were direct disobediences to my warnings and some of you are already suffering the consequences for the same, as well as the rest of us, and it's gotta stop!
9. SOME OF YOU WERE CALLED TO SPECIFIC TASKS OF HELPFULNESS AND SELF-SACRIFICE FOR THE SAKE OF THE WORK AND IMPORTANT SOULS, and some of you asked and were given express permission for such association, but that is entirely different. But where I cautioned you against it, I must now reprimand you for your mistakes.
10. I WONDERED IF GOD COULD TRUST US WITH SUCH FREEDOM WITHOUT SOME OF YOU ABUSING IT! But as the Apostle Paul found, apparently this is impossible for some, and they use this new-found liberty as a license to their own selfish ends instead of the sacrificial service it was intended to be!
11. I WANT TO REMIND YOU THAT I WAS VERY FAITHFUL TO MOM AND OUR LITTLE FAMILY FOR 25 YEARS, until that faithfulness began to stand in God's way and hinder the work. So then God had to raise up someone who could fill the bill of this great new ministry in our lives and who could be trusted with it and His words and me! You all certainly can see by now it has been proven in every way by the good fruits and world wide results, and the answer was Maria without any doubt whatsoever!--Amen? But I still love Mom very dearly and I've been faithful and loyal to her in every way and continue to honor her, care for her, love her and do all I can for her, and I still think she and her little staff should have the cruiser, our former home for ten years, and the small income you promised her, which are infinitesimal rewards, or rather actual necessities, for her incomparable contribution and services to this worldwide work from the beginning particularly her letters on marriage, childcare, etc., which we hope she'll be now writing more faithfully in obedience to our request!
12. GOD ONLY MAKES SUCH MAJOR CHANGES UNDER VERY UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES when extraordinary measures are needed to accomplish extraordinary results, and when they can be accomplished in no other way, which they now have been and are being on in our case!
13. NEVERTHELESS, I STILL CONSIDER MOM MY WIFE and honour her as one of the heads of our worldwide Family! She is still playing a very vital role in our worldwide ministry, particularly with her extremely essential counsel in her letters to all on matter of great spiritual and family importance, which are absolutely essential and on the which I consider her an expert, including Colony care, marriage relationship and children, etc., especially childcare, as well as a very knowledgeable witnessing ministry.
14. WE JUST WISH SHE WOULD WRITE MORE about these things, and we hope that if she gets the cruiser and that income, including a good chauffeur-mechanic and a secretary, as well as her dear little ever-faithful helper, Steve, she will now be able to do so without other distractions. I would suggest that it might be driven to some warm sunny clime, such as Italy, where there might be room to park it on one of their country estates there.
15. SHE MUST BE FREE OF OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES OF TENDING TABLES and devote her full time and attention to the far more desperately needed ministry of the Word--the written word on paper for all the world to read! Amen? PTL!--Or, if she prefers France, since she's learning that language, perhaps the lovely Riviera with its warm sunny beaches would be the best place for you, Mom dear! Take your choice, but write!
16. IT IS SOMETIMES NECESSARY TO CUT WITH THE SWORD OF GOD'S TRUTH TO REMOVE THE CANCERS OF EVIL! So I do hope you'll remember that these chastisements are parts of God's difficult compliments of His loving care and concern, and are absolutely necessary, not only for your own sake but for the good of the whole family and the health of the whole Body! So if I have cut you to the heart it is because you needed it and I hope it will do your hearts some good, so take heart! I love you!
17. IT SEEMS TO SURPRISE SOME THAT I STILL BELIEVE IN HUSBANDS AND WIVES as at least some place to come home to and someone to rely on when you really need help, no matter how far afield you may have gone in the meantime in the Lord's service! Just be sure it was in the Lord's service and not just your own selfish thirst for adventure!
18. WE ALL NEED COMPANIONSHIP AND A HELPMEET to stand by us continually, and any other than the original should usually be only a matter of a temporary emergency supply of this personal vital need when separated from your mate by the sacrificial necessity of His service in separate fields. If there is some more permanent design of God to suit His omnipotent purposes, then some other more permanent changes and arrangements may have to be made.
19. BUT THESE CHANGES SHOULD NEVER BE MADE WITHOUT THE DIRECT ORDINATION OF GOD AND THE COMMON CONSENT AND AGREEMENT OF ALL THOSE CONCERNED, including the immediate family and your leaders in the Lord! Otherwise I have warned some of you of the possible direful consequences of some of these spur-of-the-moment affairs! If you want me for an example, you will note that virtually all of my own personal associations along these lines have been by direct revelation and made permanent, and I have cared for them as permanent members of the family, except where they themselves desired to depart, in which case I have let them depart with my permission and blessing and in peace and common consent, have I not?--Amen.
20. BUT SOME OF YOU HAVE ONLY CONSULTED WITH LEADERSHIP AFTER THE FACT that you have already initiated the association until it is almost too late to say no--the damage is already done! You merely come and announce it to us without consultation, and this is not much help! Others of you have not only carried on certain associations of which I have not approved, but also in certain locations where I've strictly forbidden it, and this is tantamount to insolent disobedience! To defy the spirit of the law without actually breaking it amounts to almost the same thing, so I'm very concerned about some of you and your relationships, both past and present! Selah!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family}
