HomeARC ML 2387
"IT'S ALMOST OVER!"--A Theme for the Upcoming Indian YES! DO 2387 11/87
1. Amen, Lord, do help us. Give us wisdom how to counsel our folks. Help us realise & view the future, Lord, just exactly what we are doing & how much can be expected, what we should do & what we should expect.--In Jesus' name, amen.
MISSIONARIES, MacARTHUR & JAPAN!
2. I have always been greatly challenged throughout the years with new plans & new programs, new concepts & new ideas, new pushes, new drives, new pioneering etc.! I've expected great things, & quite often, in fact most of the time, we've accomplished even greater things than I've anticipated, TTL!
3. I don't think it would shock you folks to tell you this, but the India TTC or YES is probably going to be the last major training camp that Central Asia will have before the Lord comes!--Not only is the World situation tightening economically because of the Crash, but also politically. India itself is getting much tighter now. We have done wonders in India considering the actual situation, TTL!
4. When I went to Valley Farms in the end of 1948, there was a girl there who was going to be a missionary to India. She was about 30 then, & with another Alliance missionary trainee she had started a little Sunday School in the village hall, which was the only place they had for her there. It was all supposed to be part of her training for the mission field. She was deputating & was having her leadership training period. She'd already finished five years of Bible College. They required their missionaries to have five years of training plus two years of deputating, which meant raising their funds & pledges & accumulating their equipment.
5. When they went to the mission field in those days, they didn't just go as suitcase missionaries, they moved & took everything with them! They were supposed to have a five-year supply of clothing & shoes, a refrigerator of whatever type would operate on the field--gas refrigerators were quite popular in some fields--some type of cooker etc., the things which are hard or impossible to get in each particular field.
6. They had to have all their support raised & they had to have a round-trip ticket, which most countries & most governments still require today. If they went as missionaries of recognised denominations & were registered & granted visas as missionaries, they not only had to have their credentials, but they also had to have a written guarantee from the denomination that if anything happened, if their support failed or didn't come through, that the missionary organisation or the denomination would guarantee their support. And if they just didn't make it for some reason, if they just didn't work out on the field, the denomination had to guarantee their return & make sure they had that return ticket to take them off of the hands of that particular government so that the government didn't have to pay for it or get stuck with them!
7. So it was usually very difficult even then to get missionary visas in many fields, especially the poorer ones. Even Fred found this out with his 300 missionaries that he sent to Japan. After the war Japan was being very lenient & very open-armed & very hospitable, in fact, eager to have missionaries come from the great country that was so great it had actually conquered them! They wanted to know, "What kind of religion made you greater than us?" That's exactly what they said. They said, "Send us missionaries to teach us the religion that made you so great!"
8. So MacArthur asked for 2,000 missionaries, one thousand Catholics, one thousand Protestants. The Catholics almost immediately filled up their quota, but the Protestants could never agree on theirs. Think what could have been done if they had sent the Protestant missionaries, Japan could be in a lot better shape right now!--Because they were eager to learn about Christianity: "How come it made you so great?" Of course, that was probably the last war the U.S. will ever win because it's not that kind of a country any more. It couldn't even win a little war in Vietnam with a little tiny poor country like that!
9. At least MacArthur did his part, he tried. But even the Christian Missionary Alliance, which was supposedly so spiritual & so missionary minded, ultra missionary minded, they actually said that they felt that they had sent sufficient missionaries to Japan. There was sort of a proportional agreement between all the big denominations, they were all supposed to send a certain proportion of the missionaries geared to their size, & a small denomination like ours, the Alliance, was not expected to send more than their quota. Methodists, Presbyterians & Lutherans & all of them were supposed to muster up a certain quota to fulfil their portion of the thousand missionaries.
10. MacArthur didn't say to just bring it up to a total of a thousand Protestant missionaries in Japan including those who were already there, he said they needed a thousand new missionaries, more missionaries! But the Protestants decided what he meant was he wanted a total of a thousand Protestant missionaries in Japan, therefore they subtracted what they already had there & made quotas to fill the remainder from all their various denominations.--And the Alliance being so small, with not more than about 50,000 church members, their quota was not very large. In fact, because they were so missionary minded & already had so many missionaries in Japan, they said, "We have already sent our quota of more missionaries to Japan, & therefore we feel that we have done our part & our quota is sufficiently staffed already, therefore we don't need to send any more missionaries to Japan!"--"Though the field is white unto the harvest, & the harvest is plenteous, we feel that there is no further need for any more labourers!"--A direct contradiction to what Jesus said!--Mat.9:37.
FRED JORDAN & THE BIRTH OF THE SOUL CLINIC!
11. In a way, it was the Protestant churches' failure to get out & preach the Gospel & win souls that gave birth to the Soul Clinic, at least to its missionary program. At first, Fred started out as a Baptist preacher, but he was a strong evangelist. He had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, & that really set him on fire to want to win souls. As an evangelist travelling around to Baptist churches, no matter how big the meetings were, he saw that it was always just church members that attended.--And he knew he wasn't winning very many souls.
12. So he first made news as the Hitchhiking Preacher! He would dress up in a very good business suit, carry a fancy briefcase & wear a homburg hat--if you can imagine such a thing--& get out by the highway & hitch rides! Truckers & cowboys would take one look at him & whisst, go right by! But he was aiming at businessmen. And the businessmen & travelling salesmen would see this guy & really wonder, so they'd stop & pick him up, & he'd almost always win them to the Lord before they got to where they were going. And he believed in real follow-up so he kept their names & addresses & wrote to them.
13. He did this, by the way, after quitting the pastorate of a Baptist church of almost 3,000 members! He'd been trying & trying to get his church members out witnessing, but what are you going to do with a bunch of church people? Of 3,000 members he might have gotten a few dozen who would show up on witnessing night to go house-to-house. They called it canvassing then, they were supposed to be taking a canvas of the neighbourhood. It was a good opener, they'd go to the door & say, "We're taking a religious census of this neighbourhood, we'd like to know what your particular religion is" etc., & they'd find out & know how to proceed from there, whether they were saved or not. If they were already faithful members of some other church they just crossed them off their list. They were not particularly proselytising, they were trying to win people who were non-church goers. And they did pretty well!
14. If they were not church-goers & certainly not Christians, they'd get them saved & then invite them to their particular Baptist church. It was a very successful method, the Canvassing Method. It was particularly pushed by the head of the Dallas Baptist Theological Seminary, who was a real witness & soul-winner, named something like Chaffey, as I recall, who'd written some books on personal soul-winning. Fred had read his books & was convinced that mass evangelism is not where it's at, & that he needed to get his church people out. There were several other Baptist preachers who were doing this & going around teaching this too, students of Chaffey.
15. What Chaffey had said in his book was that if you'll just go out & win souls & teach them to win souls, every one of you can win more souls & be responsible for the winning of more souls than Billy Graham will ever be! Of course, this raised a row amongst Billy Graham's associates & churches who pushed mass evangelism etc. But he proved it with stats!
16. Billy Graham's first big meeting that really made him famous, thanks to William Randolph Hearst & his newspapers' backing, was in Los Angeles at that big tent that held about 5,000 people. Billy Graham would not even go to a town unless most of the churches promised to cooperate & dismiss all but their Sunday morning services--which meant all of their evening services & any other services--to let their members attend his campaign. This guaranteed a crowd!
17. So in Los Angeles, this was not his first, but his biggest campaign. He was working for "Youth for Christ" when I was very young with my little family, & he was starting to get famous. He was a "Youth for Christ" leader to begin with & he had tremendous success with youth, GBH! He went to big school auditoriums & held "Youth for Christ" meetings. He was then getting so popular that he could say, "I'm not coming to your city unless most of your churches will promise to cooperate & attend!"
18. So at that first big meeting he held, his first really big one, he got 800-some churches of Los Angeles to cooperate. Divide 800 into 5,000, his average nightly crowd. If he'd had a thousand churches cooperating, that would have only taken 5 people from each church to make 5,000. But he averaged around 6 people from each of those 800 churches each night. It didn't take too many people from each of those 800 churches to get a crowd of 5000.
19. And in nearly every edition of Hearst's paper daily there was a full page of pictures of crowds & Billy Graham & converts! He'd have these sensational converts like this wire-tapper & gangsters & dope addicts saved in his meetings. Of course, he didn't necessarily win them where he was, he dragged them in from former meetings! God bless him! He was a smart manager & a real showman & he really knew how to put it over with mass evangelism!
20. But dear Chaffey gave the stats! He showed that with Billy Graham's nightly crowds of 5,000, when the campaign was over he totalled up just a few hundred converts who were for the first time professing their faith as Christians, coming forward to accept Christ. Considering that most of the people attending were church people with which he was guaranteed a crowd to begin with, there weren't too many sinners except the few they managed to drag in! Of course, he encouraged them, "Bring your unsaved relatives, friends, neighbours etc.", & a lot of them would try their best to do that.--And that was what church people call "witnessing". If you took people to church who were not saved, you had done your part as a witness, & it was then up to the preacher to get them saved & pull them down to the altar!
21. Well, Fred, as I recall, had gone to Dallas Seminary, which is the largest theological cemetery of the Southern Baptist Church, which is the most evangelical-minded of all the 19 different Baptist conventions. The Southern Baptists are the largest & most evangelical, GB'm. And there are 17 different kinds of Lutherans. The Missouri Synod of the Lutherans is the largest & most evangelical of all the Lutheran Conventions. See, even within each of these denominations, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans etc., there are all different kinds of them, & they usually fight amongst themselves & hate each other & compete with each other etc., even though they're members of the same general denomination.
22. Each of those, by the way, has a predominant convention of Modernists also, such as the American Baptist Church which doesn't even believe the Bible or Salvation, saying, "Jesus was a great philosopher, teacher, not necessarily the Son of God".--And some of them were not even too strong on God either, but would preach a purely social gospel of "Help your fellowman." These modernistic branches of the major denominations are usually very large & powerful & rich, the Sadducees of the various denominations.
23. They're the ones who tried their best to uplift the Africans by sending them arms & weapons & financing their rebellions & wars of independence etc., actually financing armed rebellion in South Africa, teaching & training the Communist leaders of the various nations of the World! Mugabe got his training through years of schooling in a missionary school in his country. Most of those now-famous African leaders got their start in missionary schools, Modernist missionary schools, churches that belong to what's known now as the World Council of Churches, the WCC, which is thoroughly modernistic, distinctly pro-Communist & even trains Communist leaders!--One of the recent heads was an outright Communist sympathiser.
24. So the leading, largest & most powerful Protestant group of denominations in the World today is helping to further Communism, along with all those Catholics like Cardinal Pig in the Philippines, liberal Catholics who are doing the same thing.--That's a little extra history on the side I didn't intend to give you!
25. Anyhow, Fred got fed up with churchianity & dead churches & people that he couldn't persuade to get out, so he dramatically resigned from his church suddenly one Sunday morning! He said, "I can't get you people out to witness! We've tried, we've had witnessing nights, we've had Saturday afternoon witnessing, we've had Sunday afternoon witnessing, & only a handful out of 3,000 people show up!" He would get maybe as many as 30 people, again one in a hundred. So he got disgusted with the rest of them & said, "Why should I waste my time preaching to you people who are never going to be real Christians, you have no intention of winning souls or witnessing!--I'm going to go out & prove that I can win more souls on the road hitchhiking like a businessman than I'm winning right here in this church with you!"
26. So he did it, & it hit the newspapers! --It was quite a dramatic thing! "Big Baptist pastor quits his Huntington Park Baptist church & hits the road!" And he won hundreds to the Lord! He'd stay in all kinds of little rinky-dink hotels & whatnot. Usually the guys that he won to the Lord, these businessmen, would give him gifts. He lived by faith & refused to let the church give him a penny! He said, "I'm going to do it on my own by faith & show you I can do it without you! I can win more souls out on the road than you & I are winning here!"--And he did!
27. He kept all the names & addresses & every single night he'd sit down & write about 25 letters to cover that whole mailing list that finally grew to hundreds of people! He got around to most of them at least once a month with a personal little letter thanking them for their gifts & support & giving testimonies, which turned out to be the famous Prayer Letter! Of course, lots of missionaries had been using that means of soliciting support for many years. Clear back since I was a kid in the Alliance, they had Prayer Letters. It's a very good means of support if it's kept up faithfully & well written & if you're really doing something & you can talk about what you're doing!--Not just sitting around writing Prayer Letters!
28. So he got results with that personal approach & personal thanks. He wrote each one of them personally a little note every night, until it got too big for him. And the support got so good that he decided, "This is it, this is a real ministry! I'm winning a lot of souls, but I'm just one person. I couldn't dig them out of my church, but I need to get some other people like me to do the same thing, to teach them how to do it!" So he started his school, the "Soul Clinic" he called it, naming it after the clinical method used in hospitals for training doctors. A doctor goes & trains other doctors, interns, in watching them treat cases & operations & all that sort of thing.--In other words, to learn by doing. He claimed he could teach any Christian to become a real witness & soul-winner if they would come & just do what he told them to do.--And he did!
29. So when the appeal for Japan failed to get the missionaries that MacArthur had asked for, Fred saw the desperate need for missionaries. He then expanded his ministry to include the mission field. By this time he had his Soul Clinic School set up in Los Angeles, & he got together with Lee Shelley, who was quite a successful pastor with the Christian Missionary Alliance, & he had the same burden. In fact, Lee Shelley was the one who helped persuade Fred to expand his ministry to the mission field.
30. It started out with just the three-month course, 3 months to really indoctrinate his students, mostly church people who came & wanted to become witnesses, to really get them straightened out in their doctrine of Salvation. He taught Eternal Security, Eternal Salvation, & tried to teach these church people how to witness & win souls. So then with Lee Shelley's help he tried to teach them how to become missionaries as well. And within an amazingly short time, he sent 300 missionaries to Japan!--So he did his part! And, of course, it was in a very propitious time when MacArthur was re-creating Japan, & they were eager to have them. The Japanese were even asking for them!
31. Just think of the opportunity that the Christians of America fluked out on by not answering that call when MacArthur made it!--And when the Japanese made it themselves! It was very easy then to get into Japan & very easy to stay there as a missionary. They were glad to give missionary visas & permission & registration.
32. Of course, Fred had his recognised, registered organisation, incorporated in the State of California & all that, so it wasn't difficult for him to get recognition as a reputable missionary agency on the field, & register his missionaries with credentials from his group with an official name & corporation recognised by the State of California etc., even later recognised by the Federal government as able to take in foreign students for training. They could write to us, in fact we had forms from the Immigration Department in Miami for taking in foreign students, & we had quite a few of them that came from the Caribbean region, & a lot of them went back as real missionaries, TYL!
33. All of this is a lot of background & details that I don't know whether you really needed to know, but it kind of gives you my background. I went to his school then when it was at its height, most popular, & had about a hundred students in each session, a hundred students each three months, mind you, & the next few months they'd have a whole new hundred. So every few months he was turning out a hundred witnesses or soul-winners as well as quite a few missionaries.
34. Actually, Japan is an example of what was once an easy field, & where they wanted missionaries, asked for them, begged for them, & were happy to register them & give them long visas etc. In fact, I believe Japan still gives missionaries three-year visas, providing they're from recognised organisations & denominations.
THE INDIAN VISA SITUATION!
35. So some governments have been very lenient, very tolerant. However, India has been tough for many years. I was telling you about this girl at Valley Farms, & you know me, I've got to go over the whole history of every organisation & the past history of missions & governments & all the rest, but I'm just giving you this as background. I'm not only a teacher & a preacher & an evangelist, but in a sense I'm a lawyer, & I'm making a case right now for something you didn't expect tonight! "Dad's always full of surprises!" These poor folks never know what they're going to be shocked with next! But it usually turns out to be something necessary, because the Lord always gives us advance notice so we can prepare accordingly.
36. "So what, Dad? What's this got to do with the upcoming meetings in India?--You're wasting time talking about history!" Well, beloved, history makes the future! Of course, Toynbee said, "There's only one thing we learn from history, & that's that we never learn from history!" But I'm hoping that you & I are going to break that rule & learn something from history!
37. So when I went to be a pastor at Valley Farms, the girl who was training to be a missionary there was leaving for the field of India. By that time she had spent a total of 8 years in training, from the very beginning when she first went to Bible school & this & that & deputation etc. They required five years of Bible college & seminary, two years of deputation, & I think because of the tough field situation in India, she was now three years in deputation. But she had raised her funds & her fare & her pledges & all the rest, & she was at last ready to go.
38. One reason for that extra year was because the Indian government was delaying giving permission for her to come unless she could prove that she would be of some good to India, besides just religiously. Because at that time--& it may still be true today, I don't know, it's probably even tighter--they were actually not giving out missionary visas at all! In the first days of Indian independence, no missionaries were being allowed to come to India whatsoever unless they were either qualified teachers, doctors, nurses or some other kind of trained personnel who could come as technicians, specialists or professionals to work for the government or to work for the various organisations within India who could use such talent.
39. So we have really kind of over-ruled the rules--as they used to say about Britain, "She rules the waves & waives the rules"--by going in under nothing but tourist visas. A few have maybe gone in as English language teachers or a few on student visas, I don't know exactly what all they've gotten in on. But it's been a miracle we have gotten into India at all!
40. We have been going to India by the hundreds & now by the thousands for almost 15 years on nothing but tourist visas, in a land that does not want missionaries!--And has not wanted or permitted many missionaries for about half my life, ever since it became independent! Apparently the record of British missionaries in India was such that they didn't feel that missionaries were good for India or necessary. They had their own religions, why should they have Christianity? Of course, Satan is pretty much in control there both spiritually & physically & politically etc.--And from all I have heard, it's getting tighter.
COMING EFFECTS OF THE CRASH!
41. So how long can we expect to stay in India? What are we trying to train those people for? What's the use of going to India & having a big leadership training or seminar of leaders & teens etc.? Now don't get scared, I'm not cancelling it, but we need to gear things now with the future in mind. And what is this training for if there's no future? I would expect that our present ministry could come to an end there very shortly considering how almost all fields are tightening up against religion, against missionaries, against the Gospel, against the Lord--the whole World is tightening up & becoming anti-Christ!--And the Antichrist is about to arise!
42. So what are we training them for? To serve under what conditions? This isn't the first time I've ever said this. How long are we going to be able to wander the streets as mendicants & peddlers?--"Mendicant" is a nice word for a beggar. Some people would be a little more charitable & not call us beggars, but peddlers, because we do have something for sale. We do give value received.--More than value!
43. Remember, we haven't yet felt the full force of this Crash! I think one of the best names for these Crashes which have occurred throughout history, one that they have used very often, is a Panic! And a panic is terror, fear, & that's what really brings them on. When people lose confidence in their government or governments or the World economy, they begin to pull in. They begin to conserve, they begin to restrict their buying, & they begin to plan for an austere future--to use a nice word--a poor future, where they're not going to be able to spend so much. They begin to withdraw into what they figure is a little more conservative economical situation. They don't buy that new car or new house or that new set of furniture & blah blah! They stop charging up so much.
44. So don't let these sudden spurts in the stock market, these sudden recoveries, fool you! Of course the governments are now trying to put out all the good news they possibly can to encourage people & reassure them & soothe their ruffled feathers & take away their fears that this is the beginning of another great Depression, which it is! I just can't believe it could be anything else! History repeats itself, & everything that's happening now has happened before, & the very same things are happening now exactly the same as they did before, only they're trying to keep it quieter, looking on the bright side of each failure, all the banks failing, all the savings institutions failing.
45. The Federal Government of the U.S. hasn't got enough money to bail them out, but they've gone ahead & tried to do it anyhow.--Even some of those which are not under the umbrella of the Federal Security Insurance for savings. One of the biggest savings institutions was about to collapse, & though they had been warned by the Federal Government to take out this savings insurance etc., they hadn't yet done it, & the Crash came & they were about to collapse, people were "making a run" on their savings, panicking & withdrawing their money, so the Federal Government had to step in & save them anyhow to keep the economy from continuing to collapse!
46. Despite the government doing all it can to try to keep it from happening, if God wants the Crash to happen, it's going to happen!--And I believe He does because the people deserve it! The judgements of God are falling!--And He hit the rich gamblers first who had so much money to play around with that they could afford to lose it, although a lot of them lost a lot more than they expected to. But just because the stock market is making some slight recoveries, it's still way way down from what it used to be. And people are going to think twice now, after the present Christmas spending splurge. This is their last binge. They may be buying that last new car or that last new home or that last set of furniture. They figure, "Well, if this is going to be the Depression & I'll never have another chance, while I've still got a job & a salary & credit, let's blow it!"
47. These gamblers, I'll tell you, they're something! They remind me of the story of the guy who said to his wife, "Honey, what did you do with that $300 I had tucked away in the sugar bowl that I was saving?" She said, "We needed it for groceries." "You mean to tell me that that money I was saving to bet on the races, you went & blew it on groceries!"
CLOSED COUNTRIES & THE FUTURE!
48. I'm always thinking about the future, not about the present, sorry. That's supposed to be my business. Some people call me a Prophet, so it's my job to prepare people for the Future & warn them about the Future & to know the Future as best as I can get it from the Lord.--And I can tell you that things are not going to get better, they're going to, as the Scripture says, "Wax worse & worse", & they have been!--2Tim.3:13. Like the guy who voted for Goldwater said, "They told me to cheer up, things could be worse, & sure enough, I cheered up and they got worse!" (--Because Goldwater didn't win!--Ha!)
49. So if they're going to get worse, what are we going to do? I'm not even talking about the Antichrist times or the Great Tribulation--which we may already be in & not even know it! There have been countries, I can remember even when I was a lad, that have been known as closed countries to the Gospel, where missionaries were banned, where Christians were banned & not allowed to go. One closed country I can recall very clearly is Afghanistan, which has been a closed country to the Gospel ever since I was a little boy, & you can see what it's done for Afghanistan! Tibet was also notoriously closed to any kind of missionaries, & they tried their best to keep Christianity out, so they got Communism! There are many others as well.
50. On the other hand, I can remember that there were countries which were considered great missionary fields, "white unto harvest", where missionaries were allowed to run rampant & were winning thousands of converts, which are now closed countries.--China, for example! All of Korea once had a great revival under the Presbyterian missionaries some years back, & that's why many Koreans are still Christians & they have a lot of churches there.
51. Japan also had quite a harvest at the time of MacArthur because of his appeal for missionaries, so there is still quite a bit of Christianity in Japan.--Although before that the atom bomb nearly wiped out both of the major centers of Christianity there, Hiroshima & Nagasaki. I think Hiroshima was the Protestant center & Nagasaki the Catholic center. They were the major centers of Christianity & where Christianity first began in Southern Japan, coming over from the mainland. So I wonder who was behind the dropping of those bombs besides Harry Truman & the guys who piloted that plane, the "Enola Gay"! ACs? How can they live with their consciences?
52. If you'll read the personal stories of some of the people who were there when it happened--we're going to put out an article from Faithy's friend who was one of the only two survivors within a radius of two kilometers of where the bomb went off in Hiroshima, & he & his mother by a miracle survived it. All he saw was a blinding flash & then he was unconscious for he doesn't know how long, hours! He woke up & he didn't even realise at first that he was naked, all of his clothes were completely blown off!
53. There were people all around him dying & screaming in pain, tens of thousands of dead, & this one person that he found near him there, he tried to help him, but the poor fellow's eyes were melted, his face was all melted off, his hands were melted off, the flesh just melted right off the bones. He asked this person that he didn't even recognise what his name was, & it turned out to be his best friend who was standing beside him when the blast came.--Horrors! He said it was the horrors of Hell, it was Hell on Earth!
54. He went to the river to try to get some water for his friend, & they couldn't even find the river, it was so covered with dead bodies & debris! You never heard stories like that in the U.S. after the war, they really hushed it up. They did a good job of covering up the horrors of Hell they unleashed on the innocent civilians of Hiroshima & Nagasaki!
55. Well, thank God, it looks like maybe we'll at least not have the war soon, we hope. There's coming this Disarmament Treaty & blah blah, & we hope it will last awhile. In fact, we hope it will even come into effect at all. Some nut could always figure, "Well, this is my last chance while we've still got the bombs, let's press the button!" From what the Lord has shown us & what the Bible says, if that happens, it's going to be Russia, because the Whore's going to be destroyed!--Rev.18. Or maybe some of those desperate Europeans will do it somehow before they have to give up all those bombs!
56. Anyway, a seminar, a YES, for what? What are we preparing them for? What kind of a World are we preparing them for? What future have we got in this present World? I don't think we have much. I'm not trying to discourage you, you just need to know what's coming & plan on it, not expect too much, & then you won't be disappointed! I'm getting right to the crux of the matter right now!
57. We don't have to have the Antichrist or the Tribulation or the War for a major upheaval of our work to happen at any time at any moment!--It's only because of the mercy of God that it hasn't happened already! All it would take is for us to get kicked out of just a couple more nations, some of the last ones to which literally thousands of us have fled, one which happens to be our greatest, most populous field right now: India, where such an expulsion is more likely now than ever!
58. What's going to happen when they make it impossible for us to stay in India as missionaries on tourist visas? What's going to happen when they soon ban all peddlers of Gospel literature on the streets? It'll even be dangerous to go house-to-house, against the law, & in a lot of places it already is! Of course, we're such brave pioneers, we don't usually worry about the laws until they actually make it impossible for us to go, right?
59. The Crash has not finished, Beloved, it's just begun! A lot of peace prophets are trying to say, "Well now it's over, we can get back to status quo, business as usual" & blah, blah. But some of them are honest enough & fearless enough to continue to predict that the worst hasn't even come yet! So we know that that is happening, & will happen, & if nothing else happens, that alone is going to cut down our ministry! People either won't be able to give or won't be able to give as much on the streets for our products, so to speak, they won't be able to give as much toward our work, they just won't have it!
60. During the depths of the Depression, if we got a $10 offering on Sunday morning for the upkeep of the pastor & family for the rest of the week, we were doing pretty well, & were thankful. Of course, that's when $10 would buy a lot more than it does today. And hopefully, this Depression may bring the prices down just like it did in that one. But who knows?
61. Of course, the old saying goes, "What goes up must come down!", & that'll probably happen eventually as the World economy gets really bad. The U.S.A. is already on the skids, as are many of these developing nations that are already bankrupt & owe more than they'll ever be able to repay. They're already on the brink & in bankruptcy. It will take the Antichrist to try to pull them out of it!
62. But I'm not even talking about that far into the future, I'm talking about right now, what can happen any moment! We hope it doesn't happen before these meetings, but my question is, what are you trying to train these people for? What are they going to do? What are they going to do when India closes tight & won't let us peddle on the streets any more? What are our people going to do in India when they close so tight that they check on the so-called tourists more & enforce tighter restrictions & allow no more prolonged visa extensions.--"You've been here three months, get out!--What tourist needs to spend more than a three-month vacation in our country?"
63. They've been very lenient, & we've gotten away with a lot in India, & a lot of other places as well. But what if they start tightening up? They could do it for all kinds of reasons! Of course, it's the Devil behind it, but governments give all kinds of excuses, "Well, you're not supposed to be missionaries, you're supposed to be tourists, we have forbidden or restricted missionaries for many years, ever since our independence." Just think, 1948 was 40 years ago! Missionaries were forbidden then, India was considered a closed country, except for the Christian groups & missionaries who were already there.--That's what Israel did.
64. The way they started closing down was they said, "No more new missionaries, only replacements!" Well, in any country, that's missionary genocide. Because missionaries grow old--in the last 40 years a lot of them have grown old & died, in fact, probably all those who were there 40 years ago. That girl who I met in Valley Farms is either very old now, or has passed on. So that's one way they have of nicely choking out any missionary groups. Israel has done that since its beginning, "No more new missionaries, you're only permitted to maintain the exact same number of staff that you have in the country now, no more new ones, only replacements."
65. So this could happen any time, it's probably about to happen, & we'll just be thankful if we're able to have any kind of a seminar or YES at all! What surprises me is that it hasn't happened already! But that just shows you the miracle-working power of God that has protected us & not allowed the anti-Christ forces to already take over yet. "He that now letteth will let, until He be taken out of the way!"--2Th.2:7. The day is soon coming when God will remove the dam that's holding back the flood of iniquity & anti-Christism, when the Lord figures, "Well, this is it!--They've had it, let's let the floodgates open that their cup of iniquity might be filled so we can wind this all up & get rid of it & get it over with!" It's gonna happen!
66. God in His wisdom & His justice has got to let it happen!--Because that's what it's going to take to really fill the Antichrist forces' cup of iniquity & to prove that God was right!--As well as to prove who was right & who was wrong & who deserves to be saved, in a sense, & who deserves to get the full weight of the judgements of God & the Wrath of God! So it's gotta happen! And the longer the Lord waits, the worse things get! If He didn't come soon, Man would destroy himself, stink himself to death like the skunk up the tree!
WHAT WILL WE DO AS COUNTRIES CLOSE?
67. So what have we got to offer these kids in what could be their last YES? Maybe we ought to offer them a NO instead of a YES, & warn them about what they're not going to be able to do, & what to do when it happens! What are we going to tell them?--When India clamps down & there are no more visa renewals, no more of this missionary peddling on the streets when you're supposed to be a tourist. It could happen any time. In fact it's already happening some places in India, some states where they've already been forbidden & they've already clamped down & the police have already gotten on to them with one excuse or another. I think it's only the mercy of God that Gandhi is still head of India, because I think he has Christian inclinations, if not already a secret Christian due to his wife, who is a Christian!
68. What if India does close down?--Where are we going to send the Family then? Actually, it's not what if, but when India closes down!--Which, considering the way things are going so fast, they'll probably even use economic reasons: "What are you doing over here when we're poor & starving & have this great drought & great famine, & you're over here expecting our poor starving people to support you & give you gifts on the street & donations etc.!--What are you doing here? You're not doing us any good!"--At least to their flatlander way of looking at things.--"So get out!" What are we going to do when that happens? It's going to happen! You know it's going to happen, it's only a matter of when!
69. Now's the time to push! If we're going to have any great harvest & ever reach the Indian people at all, now is our last chance, & we had better not muff it, we had better take advantage of it, we had better do all we can, because I don't think we're going to have another chance! I think that's going to be the end!
70. So what are we going to do when India closes down? Many other countries have closed down now & literally kicked us out--the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea's gotten real tight, it's very difficult there, besides the fact it looks like the Communists are going to take it over politically. China has had its great day of reaping in the past. It's had its last reaping with us apparently & we can't go there any more. We're having some undercover success in the East Bloc & even in Russia, but those countries are already technically closed to us really & it's a miracle that we're able to do what we're doing there at all!
71. You say, "Well, we can do like what we're doing in Russia, Dad, at the risk of life & freedom!"--Well, there's not a whole lot that we can accomplish there. How many missionaries have we got in Russia? (Peter: Not too many.) They just go in & out briefly. How many?--Maybe a dozen at the most, & maybe not more than 2 or 3 in there at a time. That's fine to keep up a little work & encourage a few disciples, thank the Lord, it's better than nothing, at least we're reaching some, but they're closed fields! China is just as closed, if not worse. The East Bloc is a little bit more open, but it's risky even in some countries there.
72. What are we going to do then? It reminds me of a little verse I used to recite, some little poem or Mother Goose rhyme when I was a kid: "The North wind doth blow & we shall have snow, & oh dear, what will the birdies do then?" The North wind is already blowing & the snow is soon going to be falling, to make it impossible to reach, minister to & feed these fields, much less feed on them!
73. The only kind of people we can do anything with in these closed countries are people who have full support from the outside. They can't get a penny of support inside, unless it's very rare, very unusual circumstances. For one thing, the people are very poor & everything's controlled, & if they were able to get a meal here or there or lodging they're doing pretty well, much less expect those fields to support them. They all had to be supported by support that comes from people on the outside.
74. So what, Dear, will our little birdies do then? We have to face that & we have to prepare our people for it! What are we going to do when more fields close? What's going to happen to the 2,000 people we have in India when India closes? What are we going to tell those people when we have those meetings? What are we going to tell them to do when India closes tight & they can't stay there any more?
75. What's the answer? What are we going to tell them to do? We evacuated the Philippines by having three other countries that were able & willing to receive those 600 missionaries we had to get out of the Philippines! We can't work on the streets any more, we can't expect to generate any income on the local fields except undercover & underground!
76. Where are we going to send the 2,000 people in India when that field closes? Are you going to try to squeeze them all into other Eastern fields that are already packed to the gills? It's going to happen, & it's already happened in a lot of places! To whom shall we go? Very few have given us bread & life & freedom to minister & to litness, tapeness, go door-to-door, office-to-office & whatnot.
77. You say, "Why are you trying to give us this big discouraging news just before we're going to have these meetings in India?" Well, we're going to have to tell those people something! "What are we going to do when we can't stay there any more? Where are we going to go?" In some of our other Eastern fields our people already can't even find enough housing for themselves!--Or support either. Where are all those people from India going to get their support? There used to be an old song in the Depression, "What are you going to do when the rent comes 'round?" It was kind of a funny old Negro song about the guy that lost his job in the Depression & had no income etc., what are you going to do when the rent comes 'round?--What are we going to do?
78. Beloved, we are facing the hardest times this World will ever know! Of course, the worst is obviously not happening quite yet, but is about to happen! So what are we going to tell those poor people? What are we going to tell them to do when the door slams shut in India? How many more fields are we going to be able to dump those missionaries into?
79. Where are you going to send these thousands of missionaries & their hundreds of children? The fields in the East are at greatest risk of being potentially closed fields, many are already closed or being closed, because they don't like Christians anyhow & they're becoming more Communist, anti-Christ & all the rest! A lot of them have already kicked us out a few times. We creep & sneak back in, but how many fields in the East are still open where we can openly litness, tapeness, preach on the streets, busk in the parks & distribute literature & tapes & preach the Gospel?
80. I'm telling you, Folks, some of those fields could close any day! It's already happened in a lot of fields where we cannot go back openly without risking life & limb & freedom, & without literally risking deportation at least, or even jail at most!--Or in the days to come, worse than that! So where are we going to put them? We have to face this, & we have to be able to tell those people, when they ask us, "What are we going to do when the time comes when we have to leave this field, where shall we go? Where are you going to send us? Where are you going to put us?" We had a hard enough time evacuating one field with only 600 missionaries! How are we going to evacuate a field with 2,000 missionaries?
81. You say, "Well, we're not to worry about tomorrow!" Then why does God give Prophets any way to tell the Future if we're not supposed to worry about tomorrow? He didn't say not to think about tomorrow, He didn't say not to plan about tomorrow, He didn't say not to be prepared for tomorrow, He just said don't worry about it! "Fret not thyself", don't fret about it! I'm not worrying about it, do I look like I'm worried? Actually, I'm pretty happy!
82. You say, "Well, we're doing all right now, we don't have to worry about it yet!"--Well, I think we ought to try to prepare people spiritually, psychologically, to offer them some hope & some avenue of escape, to offer them some encouraging news of what to do about it when it does happen!
WE'VE DONE WHAT WE COULD!
83. I'm going to probably give you something pretty shocking, & you know me, I love to shock you! I'm leading up to it, & you know it, & you're all holding your breath waiting for the impossible answer to the impossible dream! Well, I think you probably already know the answer. I have even given it previously. I think I pretty well said it a long time ago in "Americans Abroad." (See No. 905)
84. The Lord told us to go into all the World & preach the Gospel to every creature. We've tried, & we've now even well saturated many Eastern countries with the Gospel.--Countries that are predominantly non-Christian, pagan religions--except for the Philippines, & it might as well be pagan! We have survived in those countries & literally made our living off the streets, publicly, through public litnessing & witnessing & tapenessing & whatnot! We have survived in those countries & we have, you might say, saturated them with the Gospel, at least as much as we possibly could!
85. And when it comes time that they start banning us & making it impossible for us to stay there--such as the Philippines & other places have done--what is the regular process, the usual order of events? When the Lord allows bad publicity & persecution & finally we're driven out of a field, what do you think has happened? (Peter: We've done the job.) We've finished the job in that field, as far as we're concerned. We've done what we could.
86. We have gone, we have preached & we have reached all that we could! We've obeyed, we have done it, perhaps more so than any other tiny little group as small as we are has ever done, & as zealously & as widespread & with so much outreach, till we were a familiar sight on nearly every corner of nearly every main street in their capitals & everywhere!
87. So when the Lord allows bad publicity & persecution & we get thrown out, what is God saying? (Peter: It's time to go, the job's done.) You've done what you could, it's done! So instead of feeling bad about it, how should we feel? "Praise God! TYL! We've done what we could! We must have finished the job, or at least all we could do, or the Lord wouldn't have let us be driven out!" I've said this before!
88. The Lord told Samuel, "Don't weep over Saul, he's a hopeless case! Forget him! It's finished! There has to come a new era, a new king, before anything can be done!"--1Sam.16:1.--And King David brought in the Millennium for Israel, you might say. Saul was passe', he was history, God was through with him, nothing more could be done under Saul. God had to change the system, He had to change the king, he had to change the Kingdom so that it would thrive once again, even more than ever before! Under David it got bigger & richer & more powerful than it had ever been before, & then Solomon capped the climax by extending its borders even further, & increasing its riches much more!
89. So when we are driven out of a field & it's finally closed to us, what should we be doing?--Lamenting & weeping over yet one more lost field? We should be thanking & praising the Lord, "Thank You Jesus we had a chance to stay there so many years, reach so many people, preach so much Gospel, win so many souls, we have done what we could!" It's not our fault--at least I hope not--that we got kicked out. Sad to say, in some cases it has been. Let's not let that happen again! But even if the Lord allowed that, there must be some reason for it!
90. Our radio program blanketed the entire Indian subcontinent area where millions could listen to it! Our radio programs blanketed Indonesia, people that we never saw, never peddled to, never witnessed to, but who heard the radio. In scores & scores of countries all over the World we've had radio & television shows & we have reached millions upon millions of people even if they never responded! At least we did what we could! The first part of this talk was history, but now we're talking about the Future!--Or maybe even the present in some places, we've done what we could!
91. All those years we were in the Philippines, well, maybe some of our people there didn't do what they could, & should have done better, but at least in their last days there they were really going, really rolling! We reached the last field in the Philippines, which was the Military, saturated them & just about did all we possibly could to where the Military itself was reprinting our literature & distributing it by the hundreds of thousands of copies to their own soldiers etc.!--Also the media!
92. We've done all we could there, except for a little selah, undercover, rearguard action to try to feed what sheep were left behind, to try to encourage them, what few disciples we may have left, precious few considering what we should have had! But we did what we could, & apparently that's all we could do, we didn't do any more. If we weren't good enough missionaries, if our people didn't preach enough or witness enough or win enough or disciple enough, well, they couldn't! They didn't apparently have the guts or the gumption or whatever it took to do it, & so they did what they could. That's all they could because that's all they did! So we're finished! "Okay, Dad, so what? So we're finished! Whadda we do now?"
93. Well, we've got some very encouraging verses in the Scripture about that: "When this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all nations, then shall the End come!"--Mat.24:14. Our little group alone has done a lot to fulfil this! We have ministered in over 100 different countries, literally saturating many of them with the Gospel, both on the streets & over radio & every which way, & have won millions of souls!--Not only witnessed to billions, but won millions! Hallelujah! Do you believe it? (Fam: Yes, for sure!) And then we've been run out! Praise God! Hallelujah! We did it, Lord! We obeyed, we went, we preached, we won, & now we're done!
94. I preached a message somewhat similar to this at the Swiss House in Switzerland. We were already being pretty seriously badmouthed & persecuted & driven out of some places. I said, "Well, praise God! Maybe this is it! Maybe we are finished! Okay, we did it, we did the best we could, we went this far, maybe this is our last good year! Maybe we're just about done, considering all the enemies we have & all the places we've had bad publicity & been driven out of etc." I said, "Wow, look what we've done!" And I gave'm the encouraging stats. That was about ten years ago! (See "A Job Well Done!", No.766.) But we weren't quite finished yet! We've had a better year every year since!
95. But I don't see how we can possibly outdo 1987! We've got the biggest & most unusual amazing stats, both pubs & everything, that we have ever had this past year! So this shouldn't be discouraging, this should be encouraging news: We're almost done! Summer is almost over, the harvest is almost finished, & if they're not saved now, only God knows if they'll ever be saved! So we should be thankful for how much we've already accomplished! And considering the times & the days & the seasons that we're going to enter now, when it will be very difficult if not impossible to carry on as we have been, & as it's already becoming not only difficult but impossible in some fields, the job is almost done!--It's almost over, we're almost finished, the race is almost run! PTL!
TO WHOM SHALL WE GO?
96. "Okay, Dad, so we're almost done, we get driven off the field, off every field. So where are we going to go?" Well, I've said it before, I said it in "Americans Abroad". We've come round full circle. "Dad, you don't mean that! Oh no! Don't even mention it! Why, you've been preaching all these years, 'Go South! Go East!'"
97. Most of our people, our leadership, is neither Southern nor Eastern, let's face it! We've apparently done as good a job as we could do in the East, in the Eastern countries. It's amazing how we as Westerners, as Christians, could have stayed so long as missionaries on nothing but tourist visas in many of those countries, peddling & preaching & saturating the streets with our Gospel & our literature & our tapes & our witness, winning so many souls, it's just absolutely nothing short of miraculous! We have survived on those fields as fulltime missionaries for more than a decade! I must say, it has honestly surpassed anything that I could possibly have expected! Hallelujah! TYJ!
98. I was expecting around the time of the RNR & the NRS, that maybe that was it, maybe we were finished! "Well, Dad, maybe you're wrong now too!" Look at the World, Brother! Look at the Signs of the Times! I'm sorry, I haven't got the faith for you to tell me I'm wrong now! We've been kicked out of too many countries. The Crash has come, & it will develop. In the Stock Market Crash of 1929, things didn't hit bottom till nearly three years later! Thank God! If we had that much time now I'd be real thankful, but I doubt if we do. If we weren't driven off the field politically, officially, governmentally or by enemies, bad publicity, persecution etc., I can't help but think that a lot of us will be driven off the field economically.
99. "OK, Dad, so we're finished! So to whom shall we go, where shall we go? Oh, come on, Dad, don't say it! I can't believe it!--Impossible!" It is not only not impossible, but it's very probable! If we have no more Worlds to conquer, at least not yet till the next World, & we have pretty well conquered this World & finished our work as far as they'll let us, & we're driven out, where are we going to go? You say, "Well, Dad, you've always said when there's no more way out, there's only one way to go & that's Up!" Not yet! There's going to be a little time yet before the Lord comes.
100. Well, maybe you don't want me to say it, but I'm sure you must be already guessing what I'm going to say, because I've said it before. Unless the Lord comes sooner than we expect, it looks to me like some fields are going to close before the Lord comes. Because when the Gospel is preached in all nations, then shall the End come!--When we have done our job, finished our job, saturated all these countries.--Even the Eastern countries, of all things, strange people, strange religions, strange languages, & we have done as well as we could, then shall the End come!
101. And let's face it, there have been a lot of other Christians working too, don't forget, in those fields for a good many more years than we have! The Alliance & a lot of other good Christian missionaries have been working in those fields. Even though they may hate us--they're jealous, that's why they hate us--they're still Christians. The first magazine to attack us in the Philippines was a Christian music tape magazine, & we were hurting their business, so they attacked us! We provoked them to jealousy!
102. So even though we have done all that we could & we're finished in some fields, it doesn't exactly sound like the Lord is coming right away. For one thing, I don't think we have quite suffered that much yet. The Antichrist has not been revealed yet, unless he's on television or his Image is television, if you're going to spiritualise it all like my father used to do. As I said, "What if?"--It may be later than you think!
103. For most of us who are not nationals & natives & citizens of those countries with a right to stay, there is only one place we can go! When the farmer has finished his summer's labours & the crop is reaped & he is finished with the job, where does he go?--He goes back home! The only place that you have a right to go because you're a citizen there & you have a valid right to go home! Where else can you go? To whom shall we go when all other doors are closed? Well, you finished your job! You went into all the World, preached the Gospel, won millions of souls, witnessed to billions, I think you deserve to go home! Even Missionary Societies give missionaries furloughs! Where else can you go? You tell me!
104. Well, we'll stay in some of those fields as long as we can, even little handfuls & rearguards & undercover witnesses etc., fine! But where are the other two-thirds, three-fourths or maybe even more going to go? We can't leave 2,000 of them in India! Where are they going to go? Where are we going to tell them to go? What are we going to tell them to do?
105. "Dad, that's a rather discouraging outlook, that's kind of pessimistic!" No, I don't think so! I think it's very optimistic to think that the job's almost done! "Vene, vidi, vici!", as Caesar said! "I came, I saw, I conquered!"--And then what did he do? (Peter: He went back home.) He went home! He didn't leave many legions, but he left a rearguard in each country to watch over things & help what was left of the Roman Empire until it finally all crumbled & they were driven out of all those countries & back to Rome, then finally even Rome was conquered & there was no more Rome except the old city!
106. You say, "What do you mean, Dad? You're not really suggesting that we may have to go home? We're a missionary outfit built on missions & missionaries, what can we do at home?" Well, what did the Prophets do? Many of them were exiles, many of them had to live in strange countries, & of course they spread the Gospel or they spread their religion as they did, but there were days when finally they had to go home! What did they do then? (Peter: They went & preached against their own countries.) Yes, they did! They went back where they came from & continued their prophetic ministry, where it wasn't appreciated to begin with, & will be even less appreciated to end with!
107. Although you have a right as a citizen to be there, & there's supposed to be freedom of speech, press & religion, you'll be even more persecuted because you're not their kind of press, speech or religion! So there's no real genuine freedom & they won't like you any better when you get back than they did when you left, in fact, probably a whole lot less!--Where you're going to be face-to-face with your first & bitterest of all enemies, & will probably suffer the most & worst of all opposition & persecution that you have known!
108. "Dad, if that's the case, I don't think I'm going to go home! I think I'd rather just stay in some of those countries & keep my mouth shut!" But you're not a citizen, you're only a visitor, & you can't stay. Of course, in some cases there may be ways that you can. You can be a foreign teacher or hostess, get a job of some kind that will entitle you to stay. Rather than go home, a lot of our people will find ways, by the grace & help of God, to stay. Even though you've been restricted & are unable to litness & openly witness & beg & peddle & whatnot, you may still be able to find ways to stay at least.
109. What do you think I'm going to do? Do you think I'm going to go back to the United States? Ha! Do you think I could?--Joke! So we've got to find someplace to hide & stay if we can, Lord willing, if there's still that much freedom!
110. So I don't doubt there're going to be a lot of us who are going to be "expats" as they call them, expatriates. That's kind of a funny thing to call poor people that simply have to be exiles in a strange country. It's not spelled like ex-patriots but it sounds like that, like they're no longer patriots. Well, that's for sure with us, we are definitely expatriots! Ha!
111. So you have your choice. If you think you can safely go home & get a job--especially when jobs are getting fewer & farther between & harder to get, as a lot of our people have found that backslid--& try to do what little witnessing you can, fine. Everybody will just have to find your place as you can. If there's somewhere or someplace or somehow for you to stay, praise God, stay!--Even though you can't publicly witness any more. It may be a lot safer than going home!--Get a job & keep on!
112. I wouldn't just tell you people to all go home. Stay if you can, just witness undercover, person-to-person, door-to-door or whatever, some more inconspicuous way, some more clandestine way. At least you can stay amongst your flock & feed some people & continue to shepherd some sheep & give them some help & leadership & encouragement. I would say that's the best thing you can do, if possible. Stay!
113. When you get home you may find in some ways it was worse than being on the mission field. But with some people, that's maybe all they've got the faith for. They don't know how to support themselves any more on the field, they don't have enough loyal faithful disciples to take them in & feed them if nothing else, or they can't get visas, so where then are they going to go? To whom shall they go?--Jobs or home!
114. Some people couldn't make it under the most ideal circumstances, so there are certainly going to be a lot of people who can't make it in these foreign fields under much worse circumstances! So I don't doubt that there are going to be many people who are virtually driven out of their fields & have no place else to go & don't know how to go any place else and will have to go home.
115. Well, there's one nice thing about it, most of those countries from whence you came are supposed to be civilised, Western democracies which boast of freedom, & you can always try to go back & repeat the message: "Do you want the books or don't you?"--Until you get thrown in or sent Up or whatever! We'll just have to do the best we can.
116. Where shall we go? Well, you just pray & ask the Lord, & when the time comes that you have to go, if you have to go, He'll certainly show you, amen? That we don't have to worry about. We know when the time comes He always shows us. But you need to prepare your hearts for that time.--Amen?
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
117. "Dad, if that's what's going to happen, then why have this YES? What good is this training if they're either going to have to go underground or go home?" Well, all the more reason for this training, to teach them how to go & operate underground. That was one of our first doctrines & first teachings! "We're not going to be able to operate openly any more when the time comes. The churches will be closed, Bibles burned, pastors crucified, what do we do then?" Well, I gave you a little sample of that in a tape I made once upon a time. (See "The Endtime Whispering Vision", #334) That's possible & it will happen! So we need to start teaching our people more about how to be an underground witness, how to survive on a closed field!--Are you!
THE GOOD NEWS:THE JOB IS ALMOST DONE!
118. What message do we have for the Family? Sad news? Bad news?--Good news! PTL! The job's almost done! We're just about out of every country & almost every country's closed. There is hardly any place else to go. So just do the best you can, go where you can, stay where you can & just wait for the Lord to come! And keep busy in the meantime, feeding your sheep & witnessing & winning all whom you can! Do the best you can, whatever the Lord leads you to do. I'm sure there will always be something you can do until the Lord relieves you either through death or His coming! There will always be something, PTL! Amen?
119. Thank the Lord, the job is almost done! The thing for you to do now is just try to do your best to survive, do what's left that you can do & prepare for the Millennium! Look forward to being Kings & Priests & Princes & Princesses & Rulers of the Millennium! PTL! Amen? That's all that's left! We've just about run out of time! So we've got to prepare for the place where "time shall be no more!"--Rev.10:6. Hallelujah! TYJ!
120. Well, I didn't know exactly what I was going to cover in regards to this upcoming Indian YES, but I just knew I had to talk with you & tell you, praise the Lord!--Cheer up, things could be worse, & they will be! But the Lord's still able to keep us! He's promised to be with us unto the End of the World!--Mat.28:20. So if He's with us, He's going to take care of us, even feed us in the wilderness & protect us from the Dragon & his floods of bad news until He returns! PTL! So just prepare for whatever & keep on doing what you're doing as best you can do it, wherever you can do it, & however you can do it! The Lord will take care of you somehow until He comes! PTL! Amen?
BE PREPARED FOR ANYTHING!
121. I'm reminded a little bit of what somebody once said, a bit of humour maybe to close on. I think it was Irvin S. Cobb, the famous Kentucky humourist, who said, "I'm in a bind! Everything that I want to do is either unhealthy, illegal or fattening!" Of course, he finally said, "I'm sick of being tired, & tired of being sick!", & I think he died in his 70's, something like that.
122. So if everything the Lord wants you to do is difficult or nearly impossible, well, if that's all you've got to do, just do it, that's all! PTL! And just pray the Lord will help you to do whichever thing He wants you to do! It's all going to be illegal when the Antichrist takes over, so you might as well get used to it now! PTL! Why be so worried about it? If you can't help it, it's not your fault, you're doing the best you can, you've pretty well done your job & you just may have to stay on the job even after it's illegal or whatever! PTL?
123. Good night, the Early Church & the Early Apostles did a lot of illegal things, it was all illegal, but they just had to do it!--Right on down through the persecutions of the Ages! Look at Martin Luther!--His church made it all illegal, they finally excommunicated him! That made him an illegal religionist as far as most countries then were concerned! And they were burning'm & crucifying'm & killing'm & everything else! But he managed to win the hearts of some kings who came to his protection & defence & kept him, in spite of worldwide Romanism & Catholicism, & he died at a ripe old age!
124. Dear John the Beloved, the Revelator, in spite of everything they could do to him, including trying to boil him in oil when he wouldn't boil, he lived to a ripe old age in his 90's on the Isle of Patmos as an exile, virtually a prisoner, you might say, not allowed to leave the island. But he went further on that island than anybody had ever gone before! He went clear to Heaven & revealed it & the future to us, thank the Lord!
125. So why worry? PTL? Just look to the Lord & you'll know when the time comes, He'll tell you what to do & show you what to do. Just be prepared to do it.--Or even if you weren't prepared to do it, do it anyhow, like we did when we came East! We were all prepared to do something else, but we obeyed the Lord when He said, "That's not the thing to do, do this!" But we were prepared, at least, to do something!
126. You should be encouraged that, thank the Lord, the job's nearly done & we haven't got much further to go! Just be prepared for any kind of a change! If it's illegal, unethical, never been done before, a new method, new way to go, a new way to do it, some other way to survive, be ready!--Even for the unconventional, even the illegal, the revolutionary! What's changed? What's different? We've been doing that ever since we began! We've been doing the unconventional, the unethical, even the illegal, the revolutionary!
127. If you're not willing to change, you'll never get anywhere! So if we can't do the old thing, the old way, we've got to be prepared to do something a new way, a new thing, whatever way the Lord leads! PTL? Just be willing to do it & obey the Lord & He'll show you what to do, where to do it, how to do it, how to survive if He wants you to survive, or how to go to Heaven if that's what He wants you to do! PTL! Amen? Thank You Lord, it's almost over! Maybe that's a good title for this, "It's Almost Over!" It won't be long now, it's almost over! Be prepared for anything, be willing to do anything for the Lord, even to die for Him! TYL! TYJ!
128. (Sings:) "Oh, when the battle's over we shall wear a crown, we shall wear a crown, we shall wear a crown! And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown, in the New Jerusalem! Wear a crown, wear a crown! Wear a bright & shining crown!"--This is an old timer, I haven't thought of it for years! "When the battle's over we shall wear a crown, in the New Jerusalem!" Oh boy, just think! We used to think that meant that old stinking city over there in Israel! But it's His New City! PTL! So, praise God! It's almost over! Thank the Lord!
129. It's almost over! We should be so happy & thankful that we've done our job & finished so many countries & it's almost time to go! PTL! Amen! We just have to try to survive a little longer, do whatever we can, & not try to do what we can't, & as the guy said, "Lord help me to know the difference!" PTL! God bless you!
130. Amen, PTL! It's almost over! We haven't got much further to go, thank the Lord, & soon we'll be running the World! You think you've got problems now, wait'll the Millennium when you have to run the whole shebang! Well, we'll have lots of help!--Not only from our own, but from other Christians & even Systemites, as well as the whole Host of Heaven!--So how can we lose? We can't, it's impossible! It's impossible for us to lose! We can't lose for winning! And God gets some of His greatest victories out of seeming defeat! PTL! Amen? GBAKY! ILY!--In Jesus' Name, amen!
RETURNING TO HOME FIELDS & REACHING THE LAST GENERATION!
(Later:)
131. Even if you're forced to go home because of tightening immigration & all, you're pretty much going to have to get jobs, but you don't have to stop witnessing!
132. A lot of your home fields now have become real mission fields! We were there once & saturated them, but we've been gone a long time while we reached the rest of the World! (Maria: Europe, for example, is still fruitful, but they've been lacking in leadership. Now many people from India who have to go home may be able to supply that.)--Yes!--Amen! GB'm!
133. I think we're going to go back home & do some more reaping! We reaped one generation there, but it's been 10,12, 15-20 years! Let's face it, you early Pioneers are all middle-aged now, & you haven't yet reached this next generation back home! We're going to have to do it! It's the last generation, let's face it! "When they shall see these signs come to pass, this generation shall not pass away till all these things have been fulfilled!"--Mat.24:34.
134. So this is it! We've either got to reach them now or never!--Well, we can reach'm in the Millennium, but there's a difference. I'd sure rather see them get saved now than take a chance on them going through what's coming without the Lord! And they'll be thankful too!
135. So we've got to do it! Even if some of you are driven home now, you're going back to an entirely new generation! We reaped one generation, & you're it! Now you're middle-aged & you even have teenagers yourselves! Now you've gotta go back & reap the generation that never knew us! They may have heard about us, mostly bad, but they haven't seen us & met the samples & been really given the Word or had a real opportunity of decision.
136. So even if you have to go home, you're going home to a whole new generation! They may be harder or they may be much less receptive. They say that the so-called "good" kids back home are even more System-addicts than ever before, & the others are so wild they're as crazy as Alice Cooper! You ought to read the summary of this new movie, "Prince of Darkness"! It's all about the final triumph of evil & how Satan takes over the World through these computers & his gang, all of his Antichrist people!
137. It's going to take a lot to figure ways to survive, & I think the Lord's beginning to teach us now! So even if some of you have to go home, well, there's a whole new generation waiting! It may not be as fruitful, it may not be as receptive as your last one, the hippie generation, it may be only a gleaning, but it needs to be reached & given its chance, whether they will receive or not!
138. "All things work together for good to them that love the Lord!"--Rom.8:28. TYL! I don't believe we're ever going to have to really stop completely, there's always going to be something to do somehow for somebody somewhere! (Maria: Paul was bringing out how when our people have had to go home or they've gone home of their own volition, either way, they've often gotten key positions in employment because they've been so well-equipped & well-trained in the Family, & have continued to faithfully support those still on the Field, as well as witness!)
139. What business are we in after all? It's what the World calls Public Relations, P.R.--dealing with people, salesmanship, advertising, publishing etc.! It's one of the most important key jobs in the whole World! We are PR experts! And if it worked for anything as tough, you might say, as the Gospel, there are a lot of fields it will work in. And the Lord will bless you providing you carry the Message with you & don't neglect it! GBAKY witnessing, winning souls & making disciples wherever you are!
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EXCERPT FROM PAUL PAPERS' REPORT ON "IT'S ALMOST OVER" MEETING IN INDIA:
I went over different examples of people who had gone back & gotten jobs in the System & I said, "Maybe some of you are asking yourself, 'What kind of job could I possibly get if I had to go back?' Well, I'm going to list you a number of people who, even though they were totally out of God's Will did pretty well, just from the basic training that they got in the Family, because we learned faithfulness & salesmanship & to take care of finances, & most of all how to handle & take care of people & keep them happy, & those are the things that nobody learns in any University or management training courses! Think how much more the Lord can use those gifts if you are in God's Will & it is God's Will to do it, as compared to the examples that I'm going to give of those who definitely weren't in God's Will, nevertheless the Lord did use them."
I then talked about Chronicles, for example, who started driving a truck for Pepsi Cola & ended up making $40,000 a year, & Watchman who just did an interview & ended up getting involved in Holiday Inn & suddenly became a regional manager of Holiday Inn, of Zac Lantern who became a UPI correspondent for Kampuchea, Laos & Viet Nam, or of Peter Atlanta who set up a translation agency involving 14 languages in Jakarta & became a top government translator. I tried to explain that there are possibilities, & who is to say that you can't be a Joseph in Egypt? Who's to say that you can't be a real help to your brethren in their time of need, if the Lord so wills it. Who knows, you might even get a job & be eligible to transfer overseas with all expenses paid & represent some company in India & have a Home live with you!
I also read a letter from a girl that we met during the Searcher trip in Canada, Kittim, who talked about how her ex-husband & mate had come back to Canada to try to get some paperwork done & how they had really stirred up the area & got everybody really living for the Lord again & living their priorities & forsaking all, & what an influence it had had on the area.
So as far as further preparing them for it, I said, "Look, you've got to go back with the vision that if it's God's Will, He's got a place for you!--Not only a home to live in, but a real responsibility, & you've got to also stay on the Letter lifeline & really have the vision to live with others. We've got to learn from our past mistakes of the 1979 NRS, not just getting into watching TV & drinking beer & living Systemite lives, but to co-op with others & co-op on the children too, & use this as an opportunity to really train them & pour into them & prepare them for the Millennium. Maybe they could get involved in a correspondence course or something to try to keep the kids out of school."
I said, "Even Dad had to go back to his home field after he was a missionary & being on the road all those years, but the Lord still used it & gave him the training & preparation he needed to one day be even more mightily used of the Lord!" I told them that they've got to keep the vision for whatever they do, that the Lord's in it & they can learn from it. I also added that if they're worried about enrolling their teens in the American System school & they don't feel that they could teach them by themselves, they might even want to consider leaving them as singles on the field in the care of foster parents who are going to remain behind, because singles, of course, are always needed anywhere.--Or send to Christian School!
We also encouraged them to witness to the Asian communities such as Australia has & in places like San Francisco, being well over 50% Asian, & Vancouver being about 80% Asian. Certainly we can win a lot of top Asians who are fluent English speakers & who were brought up in somewhat Western conditions & maybe send them as singles to the field.--And this is in addition to helping to support the field & perhaps pledging 10% a month & working up to 20-30% a month, & just seeing how much the Lord could possibly bless them.
I also added the possibility that some were able to get student visas to study subjects like Hindi in India, & that gives them one-year visas, but these have to be applied for from abroad. Or possibly the Lord will use opportunities like working for kings who are involved in international business & they can in some way give us visas.
--AMEN! GBY!--KEEP HIM ROLLING!
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Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
