HomeARC ML 0682
"THE SHEPHERD'S ROD!"--By Father David 16-3-78 MO--DO--NO.682
Copyright © by The Family of Love, April 1978, CP 748,00100 Roma, Italia
1. THE NUMBER ONE RESPONSIBILITY FROM EACH MONTH'S INCOME IS PAYING YOUR BILLS! And which bills do you pay first? First, your housing, second, your utilities, and third, any other payments you have like your WS 11%!
2. IF YOU'VE GOT ANYTHING LEFT YOU EAT, and if not you just don't eat! Either that or you get out and hump for it and get it so that you do eat. This has been our policy for years!
3. IF YOU HAVEN'T USED THAT POLICY, you have not obeyed the Letters. It would be a real besmirchment on the cause of Christ for you to go bankrupt, especially after being such a testimony.
4. IF YOUR HOME GOES BROKE, you need to choose new Servants who can manage finances better and make you all get to work!
5. SOME HAVE LITERALLY BEEN ROBBING GOD, ROBBING US AND ROBBING HIS PEOPLE BY MISMANAGEMENT OF HIS FUNDS!--Not deliberately, but you just don't know to handle them or what the priorities should be.
6. WHEN YOU'RE GETTING TO WHERE YOU'RE EVEN SHORT OF FOOD that's really sad! We are going to have an immediate shakeup to cure this whole thing immediately.
7. SOME OF YOU HAVE PILED UP COLOSSAL DEBTS AND UNPAID BILLS ALTHOUGH YOU'VE HAD A GOOD INCOME, excellent forsake-alls, help from us, etc. But you just don't know how to live within your income and you have been literally living on borrowed money and borrowed time and now have run out of both!
8. WHEN IT COMES TO HANDLING MONEY, YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE SOMEBODY WHO IS BUSINESS-LIKE, tough, hard-boiled! That's where you need a tyrant! That's where you need someone to crack the whip!
9. FIRST YOU PAY THE RENT, SECOND YOU PAY THE UTILITIES for the house--lights, gas, water, oil, whatever--third you pay any kind of other payments you have. You put all your bills first, then if you have any money left over, you eat. You know why I have the faith to do it that way?
10. GOD HAS PROMISED US OUR FOOD AND OUR CLOTHING, HE DIDN'T PROMISE HOUSING! Did you know that? Housing is a little extra bonus and luxury God gives us.
11. WELL, SOME OF YOU PEOPLE MAY HAVE TO MOVE OUT OF YOUR MANSIONS and into some of these refugee squatter huts, and I'm not kidding! If you can't pay your bills you've got to move!
12. YOU HAVE GOT TO GO TO WORK OR MOVE OUT! If an established field can no longer pay for itself, then it's time to go, hit the road and trust God!
13. SOME PEOPLE HAVE THE IDEA RUNNING ON FAITH MEANS RUNNING IT ON NOTHING.--FAITH IS NOT NOTHING! "Faith is the substance of things hoped for." It's knowing God and that God is, and that God is going to take care of you somehow if you obey Him and do His will and His work.
14. SOME OF YOU HAVE HAD GOOD INCOME BUT YOU HAVE STILL LIVED BEYOND YOUR INCOME. Your practice has been to eat first and pay bills later.
15. WE CANNOT HAVE THIS THING BECOMING A TOTAL REPROACH ON THE CAUSE OF CHRIST and a bad testimony to all of our friends.
16. SOME HAVE SPENT EVERYTHING THAT'S COME IN, and they still haven't got their bills paid!
17. SOME HAVEN'T EVEN GOT ENOUGH MONEY TO PUBLISH LIT! It's just unbelievable! It makes me so disgusted I feel like closing down your whole work!
18. THE ONLY REASON YOU'RE NOT PAYING YOUR BILLS AND ARE NOT GOING TO EAT IS BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT WORKING, or God would bless you with income. I have never known the time in 60 years of my life when I couldn't pay my bills or I couldn't eat! Never!
19. I JUST DON'T BELIEVE THIS BUSINESS OF PEOPLE NOT PAYING THEIR BILLS! And it's only because you are not working nor obeying God or you'd have the money to pay them. There's no excuse!
20. BUT FOR SOME IT'S ALMOST TOO LATE! HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET SUDDEN INCOME RIGHT THIS MINUTE TO PAY UP? Every one of you, according to your talents, hit the streets litnessing and provisioning immediately!
21. IF YOU'RE GOING TO KEEP YOUR PLACE ALIVE, everybody get out on the streets or door-to-door and work for it!
22. PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WORK HARD 8, 10, 12 HOURS A DAY AT A JOB. For God's sake, why can't we work that hard for the Lord? You ought to be thankful you're able to do it for God instead of the Devil!
23. IF YOU'RE NOT WILLING TO WORK JUST AS HARD OR HARDER FOR THE LORD THAN YOU DID FOR THE SYSTEM, THEM YOU OUGHT TO QUIT God's business and go back into the system and work for money. At least you'd be a better testimony! There's no reason why every person in every one of your Homes can't get out!
24. ALLOW ONLY ONE PERSON TO STAY HOME, male or female, to answer the phone, care for any kids that are too sick to go out, or be there when they come home from school, and cook whatever meals have to be cooked and do whatever housekeeping has to be done, plus maybe a teacher.
25. MY LORD, IN MILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF HOMES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING EVERYDAY! Just one poor little woman does it all! Why the hell can't you do it in our Homes!
26. IT CAN BE HER FULL-TIME JOB or she can alternate and somebody else take a turn being home to do the housecleaning, the laundry, the meals, the kids, whatever.--The Homekeeper! If they can do it in the world for their own family, why can't you do it for the family of God?
27. THE ONLY PLACE WHERE THEY CANNOT ALL GO OUT EVERY DAY WOULD BE AN OFFICE OR PUB HOME.--But those people are earning their salt by producing the lit. And they had better have enough to keep them busy all day long or hit the streets with lit and the stores provisioning!
28. SOME PEOPLE NEED TYRANTS, and a situation like this one is due for a tyrant! They've had an easy-going sweet little fellow who loved everybody and everybody loved him for too long.
29. A BROKE SITUATION NEEDS A TYRANT, AND THANK GOD IF THERE'S ONE THERE! Maybe he's been on the black list and has been blackballed and discouraged--now maybe you need to give him a little encouragement by telling him "Wanted, one tyrant!" He's taken a putdown, now it's time for him to be put up!
30. SUCH PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE OUT ON THE STREETS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER!: You're either going to get out on the street in the daytime and work and have a place to go home to at night, or you're going to be out on the street 24 hours a day with no place to go home to, nothing! "They that shall not work, shall not eat"--and they certainly don't deserve a place to live!
31. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT WITNESSES A CHRISTIAN CAN HAVE IS PAYING HIS BILLS! "Providing all things honest to them that are without." (1Tim.3:7; Rom.12:17; 2Cor.8:21.) Some say, "Well he ought to forget it and donate it." I don't care how rich the corporation or the creditor is:
32. MOST OF THE RICH MEN I KNEW WANTED TO SEE FIRST OF ALL HOW HONEST YOU WERE, how faithful, how diligent you were, how hard you worked to try to pay your bills. Then if they saw you did your best, they would turn around and try to help you.
33. AT THE RATE SOME OF YOU ARE GOING, YOU'RE GOING TO STARVE TO DEATH!--If it weren't for the mercy of God!--And apparently I am the mercy of God right now, your last chance to obey!
34. SOME MONTHS AGO MONEY WAS NO PROBLEM FOR SOME, you had lots of money from forsake-alls, litnessing and whatnot, and everything was fine. Now you have not only spents it all but you've run up colossal debts and can't even pay your bills, and there's just no excuse for it!
35. IF YOU WORK HARD AND THE FIELD STILL DOESN'T PAY FOR ITSELF, THEN YOU NEED TO FIND A NEW FIELD, or you shouldn't have gone to that field in the first place.
36. GOD HAS BEEN DOING HIS PART, and a few sound to me like they have more than done their part. But it's just these terrible mismanagers of funds and a lot of loafing lazy people who are not working.
37. (SARA: I THINK TOO IT WAS BECAUSE THEIR FFing WASN'T PAYING. FFing was an expense rather than a fruitful effort. If you FF all night and you can't work in the morning it doesn't pay either way. You're losing money at both ends of the stick.)
38. IF FFing's COSTING YOU MONEY AND NOT PAYING BESIDES, and then you're losing time in the morning sleeping, then you're losing three ways! Terrible! Some apparently have really FFed all right, but they sure didn't know how to make it pay. Why are the boys still going with them? Let the girls go together and the fish will pay!
39. WE WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH SUCH HOMES and why they're not able to earn their own support. We're going to find out who the loafers are!
40. MAYBE YOU'RE LOAFING BECAUSE YOUR HOME SERVANT HASN'T GOT THINGS ORGANISED and scheduled, and the shepherd doesn't herd you out to go to work.
41. I HAD THAT PROBLEM WITH PERSONNEL LONG AGO IN OUR FIRST SOUL CLINIC SCHOOL. Some of them never felt inspired to witness, the Spirit never moved them to go out door-to-door, so I moved them! I said either you move out door-to-door or you move out!
42. I WANT THE VSs TO GET OUT AND FIND OUT WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THESE SPECIAL PROBLEM HOMES that are really a mess. Investigate the conditions and see eye-to-eye what the situation is.
43. IF YOU'RE OUT OF FUNDS, YOU SHOULD ALL BE OUT RAISING MONEY THE FASTEST WAY YOU CAN because you need immediate cash. Everyone should get out immediately and hit the streets and the businesses and homes litnessing and provisioning.
44. MAIL PROVISIONING IS GOING TO TAKE TIME, BUT SOMEBODY SHOULD START writing a prayer letter asking for help, and God knows you certainly need help!
45. MAKE EVERYBODY SIT DOWN FOR AT LEAST 1-2 HOURS AND WRITE LETTERS HOME.--One letter to the parents, one letter to their self-supporting brothers and sisters, or relatives that they know could help them. Tell them we are in desperate need and having a hard time meeting our needs, could you please help us? Don't stop and wait for a prayer letter, write your own--TONIGHT!
46. SOMEBODY WHO KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT WRITING PRAYER LETTERS CAN WRITE A GENERAL PRAYER LETTER that they can put a few pictures in and stories of their accomplishments there, something that would be worth bragging about. Have this printed up as quick as possible, and send them out right away! Get the mail provisioning rolling as quick as you can!
47. GET THE FFers ON THE BALL! Let your fish know you're desperate for money. "Did you know we didn't have enough to eat at our house yesterday?" Or, "We haven't been able to pay the rent!"
48. THESE GUYS SAY, "WELL WE'RE WAITING TO SEE IF YOU NEED IT." My God, how much more could you need it than you need it right now! "We can't pay our rent, we can't pay our bills, we're desperate! We're going to have to close down our house and move and I'm going to have to leave and leave you behind, if you don't help us!" Sic these FF girls on their fish and tell them the truth!--That you need help!
49. "I HAVE GIVEN YOU EVERYTHING, NOW IT'S TIME YOU SHELL OUT AND HELP THE FAMILY or we're going to close down and all of us leave, including me!" Is that clear? There's no use wasting your time on somebody who's not producing and showing some fruit!
50. I'M GETTING FED UP WITH PEOPLE WHO DON'T SHOW THEIR GRATITUDE BY SOMETHING MATERIAL. It's nice to say "thanks," or "I love you," but it doesn't pay the bills! They better start putting works to their faith!--"Faith without works is dead" (Ja.2:17), and love without some material manifestation is doubly dead! He may say,
51. "WELL, I AM WILLING TO HAVE YOU AT MY PLACE and I'll feed and board you there." "No, if you won't help the Family, I go with the Family. If you're going to let us get down to where we have to close down our Homes and leave, then I'll have to go too, I have to live with God's Family!"
52. MY GOD, IF HE HAD TO HAVE A GIRL LIKE YOU AND PAY FOR YOU BY THE NIGHT, HE'D HAVE PAID OUT PLENTY by this time! A high-class call-girl in the U.S. costs men $100 a night, and some of them charge that per hour!
53. IS HE GOING TO DO LESS FOR LOVE? It's time you put the pressure on your fish and tell them, "Our Home has gone broke and we're going to have to close down if we don't get some help.--And if they move out, I go with them! Now are you going to help us or not?"
54. NOW THAT'S THE TRUE TEST OF LOVE!--Just to see if he's going to go to bed with you, that's no test of love! Even if he's willing to support you alone, that's no test of his love for God and the Family.
55. WE'RE NOT CHARGING, BUT WE EXPECT PEOPLE TO SHOW THEIR THANKS AND THEIR APPRECIATION, and they ought to give it more for love than if we charged them!
56. EVERY GIRL THAT HAS A REGULAR FISH THAT SHE'S BEEN GIVING TO OUGHT TO ASK HIM FOR SOME HELP! Ask for it! "We desperately need help! We have gone broke! We can't pay our rent and our bills and we hardly have enough money left to buy food!"
57. IF WE'VE GOT ANY MUSICIANS AROUND THEY OUGHT TO GET OUT AND FIND A PLACE TO SING AND PLAY! Get out someplace and play music, if you have to do it in the park, bars or on the street with your wives and kids and pass the hat!
58. THESE BIGSHOT MUSICIANS WHO'VE BEEN ON RECORDS AND TV SHOWS, I SUPPOSE THAT'S BENEATH THEIR DIGNITY to go out on the street and be a monkeyman anymore! But I can remember the days when we did it, and the Lord blessed in those days & we got the money!
59. EVERY MUSICIAN WHO'S BETTER AT MUSIC THAN HE IS AT LITNESSING AND PROVISIONING SHOULD GET OUT SOLICITING! Get out to the parks or the streets, if you've got to sing to the pigeons! If people won't give anything else, you can pick up the peanuts and bring them home for the kids! My God, they throw peanuts to the pigeons who don't even sing! So some of these warblers can get out and sing for at last a few peanuts!
60. NOW GET THOSE MUSICIANS OFF THEIR FAT FANNIES AND GET THEM OUT, if they have to take their wives and their children and everything with them! Get them in the park nice and early singing for a living. And I mean pass the hat! I'm not kidding!
61. TAKE ALONG A PLATE OR A TIN CUP OR A HAT OR SOMETHING and while you're playing and singing have your dear little kids go around with lit in one hand and a tin cup in the other. Offer the lit to the people and hold the tin cup close enough that they get the point. We did it with our kids!
62. YOU CAN GO TO THE CLUBS AT NIGHT. Take the kids and wife home and start pumping the clubs or the restaurants at night and find out where they'd like to have you play. I mean it! You're going to have to get out and get busy and really witness if you're going to survive!
63. IF YOU'VE GOT ANYBODY THAT'S WORKING ON A SOUL YOU BETTER GET OUT AND TRY TO WIN THEM! Persuade some of these people who have gotten saved but who've been putting off being disciples to join and bring everything they have with them!
64. OR PERSUADE THEM TO DROP IN, STAY ON THEIR JOB BUT CONTRIBUTE TOWARD THE FAMILY. You are now their church. Let me tell you, they wouldn't be going to the other churches for nothing, right?
65. IF YOU CAN'T DO ANY ONE OF THE FIRST 6 THINGS YOU SHOULD GET A JOB! And if you can't get a good job here, I suggest you go someplace where you can.
66. YOU OUGHT TO GO BACK HOME TO THE U.S. AND GET A GOOD JOB WHERE THE PAY IS HIGH and send your money back to pay the bills! If there are already more than enough people to do the witnessing, why not go back to the U.S. and get a job and support a missionary if you can't be one!
67. WHY WORK AT A JOB IN THESE POOR COUNTRIES where their own people need the jobs and they don't have enough money to pay them hardly anything? It's ridiculous, unless it's some kind of a witnessing job like singing or teaching or something like that.
68. I CERTAINLY WOULDN'T JUST TAKE ANY JOB. The smartest thing you could do is go someplace that's got plenty of money and you don't have to worry about visas, like the U.S. if you're an American, and send the money!
69. THAT'S THE LAST RESORT, IF YOU CAN'T EARN YOUR LIVING ONE OF THE OTHER 6 WAYS OF WITNESSING. All of these others are ways of witnessing at which you can actually earn your living: Litnessing, provisioning, mail provisioning, FFing, music, forsake-alls by winning disciples. All those are methods of witnessing.
70. IF YOU CANNOT EARN YOUR SALT AT ONE OF THOSE 6 METHODS OF ACTUAL WITNESSING, YOU'RE NO MISSIONARY! You don't know how to be a missionary! Go back home and get a good job and make good money and send the money to the folks that you know are working hard & trying to be missionaries!
71. I BELIEVE BY INSISTING THAT YOU OBEY THE LETTERS AND GOD and a whack with the rod to get you off your rumps and out into the grass and grazing, that we are going to make your country a shining example of what can be done with an impossible situation! Either that or we're going to pull out, this is your last chance!
72. AMEN, LORD, IT'S IN THY HANDS NOW, WE'VE DELIVERED OUR SOUL! We're Thy mouthpiece, Thy prophet, Lord, to tell the people what they should do.
73. WE TOLD THEM BEFORE BUT THEY'VE FORGOTTEN AND IGNORED THY WORD. They haven't searched Thy Scriptures to see what the problem is and where the answers are, and are apparently doing almost nothing. They certainly haven't done enough, Lord.
74. WE TOOK AWAY THEIR TYRANTS SO NOW THEY'RE DOING LESS FOR THEE and us than they did for them! Now Lord, we're going to have to be their tyrants--You and me!
75. WE ARE GOING TO GET ON THEIR CASE AND HERD THESE SHEEP and ride herd on them until they produce and they get out and work for that grass themselves and produce the wool to support Thy work!
76. WE CAN USE LOVE AS LONG AS THEY'RE DOING THEIR JOB, BUT THIS TOO IS LOVE. Thy rod is love: To get them out and compel them to obey and do Thy will and get on the job and produce is love!
77. SO HELP THEM NOW TO HEAR IT, RECEIVE IT AND OBEY IT, and to begin today! In Jesus' name.
78. WE DIDN'T GET THIS FAR BY MY BEING AN EASYGOING PUSHOVER! We got this far by my being like God!--A hard man who cracked the whip and wielded the rod and got you people to obey and do what you were supposed to do!
79. IF YOU THINK WE GOT RID OF ALL THOSE REDUNDANT LEADERS JUST BECAUSE WE WERE SUDDENLY GOING TO SET YOU FREE TO DO NOTHING and have no rules or regulations or anything and no work, you're mistaken! I got rid of those leaders not only because some of them were bad and doing wrong, but because God told me we didn't need them in that capacity anymore! We need pioneers!
80. WE ARE GOING TO RIDE HERD ON YOU PEOPLE OURSELVES PERSONALLY now. And I'll do it by the letters and by the few leaders we have left--the Visiting Servants and a few others.
81. IT'S TIME TO GO BACK TO WORK AND WORK BETTER THAN WE EVER DID BEFORE! I want to see you kids produce better now than you did under the tyrants!--Not produce less but more! I'm going to be harder on you than the tyrants you had!
82. IF YOU CAN'T PRODUCE MORE FOR GOD AND FOR ME, THEN YOU DON'T DESERVE THE JOB! If you would produce more for some pipsqueak of a little local tyrant than you will for God and for love and for me, you don't belong in God's army!--And I mean it!
83. I WANT TO SEE YOU GET OUT AND PRODUCE MORE THAN BEFORE! I want to see you produce more now for the love of God and the love of souls and the love of your prophet in obedience to me than you produced for those little tyrants!--And if you don't, you're not worth your salt!
84. IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ALL BY LITNESSING, and for God's sake, it doesn't have to be all by just a few little litnessers!
85. I WANT TO SEE EVERYBODY DOING WHATEVER THEY CAN DO BEST. If you can litness better than anything else, litness! If you can provision better than anything else, provision! If you can win souls and forsake-alls better than anything else, do it!
86. IF YOU CAN FF BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE, FF, providing you make it pay! If you can play music and make it pay for itself better than anything else, then play music! And if you can write prayer letters better than anything else, do that!
87. IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO ANY OF THOSE THINGS, THEN WORK AT A JOB FOR MONEY! Go back to the States and do it where there's lots of money, good jobs at high pay, and send it!
88. I CAN BE HARD IF I HAVE TO BE! The Lord Himself told the story about the hard God. The man said, "Thou art an hard man!" God said, "Well, you knew I was hard, so why didn't you do the job? Why did you just bury your talent and sit around doing nothing?" (Mat.25:14-30.) If any of you have buried your talent, you better dig it up!
89. AS FAR AS WE'RE CONCERNED YOU HAVE BECOME UNPROFITABLE SERVANTS, and if you don't get your people out to work and prove that they can still save the situation, then we're just going to close you down!
90. ALL RIGHT LORD, WE'VE GIVEN THEM THE WORD AND THE ROD, now we ask You, in Jesus' name, to help the sheep to obey and go where they're sent. The grass is there, Lord, all they need to do is go there and get it and the wool will grow! They won't have to rob Thee anymore, or rob us or Thy work anymore, and rob the world of the ministry they're supposed to have. In Jesus' name.
91. THEY'RE JUST FALLING DOWN ON THEIR MINISTRY IN ALL THESE FIELDS, OR YOU WOULD HAVE MINISTERED TO THEM. Their contacts and converts and fish and everything else would have ministered to them. Either they don't know how to minister or they don't know how to make it pay.
92. IF THEY'RE TOO GOD-DAMNED PROUD TO ASK FOR HELP, they're too God-damned proud to be in Your business, because that's what a great deal of it is, asking for help!--In Jesus' name, amen.
93. ONE OF THE FIRST LESSONS I EVER HAD TO LEARN WAS THAT YOU'VE GOT TO BE HUMBLE ENOUGH TO ASK for it! You can't just wait until they voluntarily offer to give it, you've got to ask them for it. And you girls who have been playing around with some fish for a long time and not gotten anything out of him, you're unprofitable servants!
94. LAST BUT NOT LEAST, THERE ARE DEGREES OF PUNISHMENT AND DEGREES OF REWARD. The Homes that prove by the 1st of May that they can make it or look like they may be able to make it, we'll leave them alone.
95. BUT THE HOMES THAT DO NOT PROVE THEY CAN MAKE IT BY THE END OF APRIL WE ARE GOING TO CLOSE DOWN. Is that clear? The hard workers are going to be rewarded and the others are going to be closed down.
96. SO YOU GUYS BETTER GET ON THE BALL AND GET OUT AND GET TO WORK! The only Homes that are going to stay open now are the ones that are paying their way. We're not going to let you rob God any more!
97. NO MATTER HOW MUCH OR HOW LITTLE YOU EARN, YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE YOUR 10% TO GOD, no matter what! Is that clear? No more borrowing funds from your tithe box!
98. I'M SICK OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T WORK!--People who won't work and can't make it pay! Some people have probably been doing all the work, more than their share, while others haven't done their own share. Some are over-worked while others are under-worked. Get to work! It's your last chance!
99. WELL, WE'RE GOING TO WEED OUT THE UNDER-WORKERS and ship them someplace else or hit the road with them or send them home! We're going to totally excommunicate unproductive Homes, period!
100. YOU HAVE HAD YOUR DAY OF GRACE! You have had your day of patience and longsuffering and too little work. You are now due to get the rod and I'm whacking away! Maybe it will do the whole world good, I hope so! Praise God!
--Love, Disgusted Dad!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
