"WHAT IS THAT IN THY HAND?"               GP 315          10/74

         1. I AM CONVINCED THAT OUR CHILDREN & FAMILIES ARE GOING TO BE SOME OF OUR GREATEST WITNESSES, the proofs of the pudding, the samples of the sermons, that what we have to say about living for the Lord the way we do really works!--"SEX WORKS!", & it certainly is working in our outfit & producing tremendous results, thank the Lord! Our families are absolutely exploding with a thunderous roar that's going to be heard 'round the World!
         2. THE LORD SHOWED ME THIS IN A RECENT REVELATION WHICH HE GAVE ME WHEN I WAS ASKING WHY WE WERE HAVING SO MANY BABIES when they seemed in some ways to be more of a burden than a blessing! The World's greatest problem today is their children because of their problem parents, & we have the only solution & they know it! That's why they're so glad to have us in so many countries, as they're grasping at any straw that they think might save their children as well as themselves FROM their children!
         3. WHEN THEY SEE OUR HAPPY FAMILIES & WONDERFUL CHILDREN working together in peace & harmony & truly united in spirit as well, they cannot help but marvel as they did at my children when they were small & singing & witnessing together for Jesus. They weren't ALWAYS good & things weren't ALWAYS peaceful & we frequently had our problems & differences, but they were minor & mere little childish spats compared to the violent wars which are being carried on in so many families between parents & children!
         4. SO YOU CAN SEE HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO TRAIN OUR OWN CHILDREN, to train our own little ones in the way that they should go, like we did mine. We weren't perfect & we made lots of mistakes, but because we constantly sought God's help & guidance, they certainly turned out a whole lot better than most.
         5. WE HAVE THE ONLY CURE & THEY KNOW IT, & we have the precious products to PROVE it, including our wonderful happy children!--Praise the Lord & thanks to your help & training!
         6. SO YOU MUST NOW SET ASIDE EVERY OTHER CONSIDERATION & PUT THIS CHILDCARE MINISTRY FIRST & foremost in all of your plans & activities, lest we give them too little & too late! You're already far behind in this ministry, & it is going to take every moment of your time to try to catch up, all of you who are already so deeply involved in & concerned about this absolutely vital & utterly essential ministry!
         7. SO YOU MUST BEGIN TO WORK NOW AS YOU HAVE NEVER DONE BEFORE, fast & furiously, before any more of these precious little ones are lost to His cause & gone astray! Some of you have been singing & dancing & picnicking & partying to attract their OLDER brothers & sisters, which is all very well & good & a necessary part of our outreach & means to reach them all.
         8. BUT MANY OF YOU HAVE BEEN LETTING THE BABIES FALL OVER THE CLIFFS while this has been going on, to be lost & gone forever, when an OUNCE of PREVENTION could have accomplished much more than your present POUNDS of CURE!
         9. IT IS BETTER TO BUILD A FENCE AT THE TOP OF THE CLIFF THAN A HOSPITAL AT THE BOTTOM! Why should we have to spend so much time & energy & expense in trying to cure those who have ALREADY grown & gone astray, when we could show their parents how to raise them in the ways of the Lord in our schools, or at home, & keep them from EVER having to leave the fold except to rescue others who are already lost on the mountain & in the wilderness?--WHY?
         10. WHY DON'T YOU REACH THEM NOW WITH THE MESSAGE & THE METHOD THAT WILL SAVE THEM NOW rather than to try to rescue them from the rocks of the future below? Why don't you do it NOW? Why do you keep putting it off until it's more convenient & you have more time? It'll NEVER be more convenient & you'll NEVER have more time!
         11. NOW IT IS HIGH TIME THAT ALL OF YOU EVERYWHERE REPENT, & start doing your first works of putting the KINGDOM of GOD FIRST where CHILDREN come FIRST, "for of SUCH IS the Kingdom of God!"--Mat.19:14.
         12. I CONSIDER YOUR CHILDCARE MINISTRY OUR MOST URGENT WORLD EMERGENCY OF TODAY to save our children before it's too late & to make them & our families the witnesses God wants us to be to the World! Caring for our own CHILDREN is even more important than your trying to reach the children of OTHERS who are ALREADY lost!
         13. FOR OUR OWN CHILDREN & THE EXAMPLE OF OUR OWN FAMILIES CAN DO MORE to win their hearts with the living proof than all the singing & dancing & skits & show-biz in the whole World! GOD puts the Kingdom of His OWN children FIRST!--Do YOU?
         14. BUT IF WE NEGLECT OUR OWN WHILE TRYING TO HELP OUR NEIGHBOURS', we will not only be very poor parents but also dandy bad examples of those who don't practice what they preach, sermons without samples & "faith without works, which is DEAD!"--Jam.2:17. What kind of a sample are YOUR children?
         15. NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN GOD'S CHILDREN & THEIR CARE, FOR THEY ARE HIS KINGDOM! What are YOU doing to make them a sample of His Heaven on Earth, little angels of His Love & mercy? Or have they become little devils of destruction & more like the children of the ENEMY & HIS present kingdom of HELL on Earth & THEIR children?
         16. WHICH ARE YOU GOING TO PUT FIRST?--GOD'S Kingdom of HIS children?--Or run around trying to correct the NEIGHBOURS' children while your OWN are going astray? If you do not put the Kingdom of His OWN children first, you are failing both GOD & THEM & will have the DEVIL to pay, & his wages are DEATH!--WHICH will it be for YOURS?
         17. NOW YOU MUST CARE FOR HIS KINGDOM OF HIS OWN LITTLE CHILDREN MORE than you have ever cared before, that He might make of them a GREAT NATION: ("As the seed of Abraham so have I given unto your father many children who shall rule the World!") Hallelujah! Praise God! What a wonderful promise!--But what a great responsibility!
         18. ARE YOU EQUAL TO THE TASK?--NO, BUT GOD IS!--AND HE WILL HELP YOU to make them His GOOD children, His faithful WITNESSES & His future RULERS if you'll do your best as His QUEEN MOTHERS & KINGLY FATHERS to rear them in His house as the fine & worthy PRINCES & PRINCESSES that they should be & MUST be to rule His future Kingdom with us! What a future! What a Kingdom! What a task!--Are YOU fit for it?--GOD will help you if you TRY!--Amen?
         19. SO THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS!--THAT TINY BABE WILL BE A KING SOME DAY!--THAT LITTLE GIRL WILL BE ONE OF HIS QUEENS!--Those happy, laughing, shouting children will be His princes & princesses & officers & governors & governesses who shall "rule the Earth with His iron rod" of LOVE!--Rev.2:27. Are you teaching them HOW with the rod of His Love TODAY so they'll remember how to use it TOMORROW as they teach OTHERS in love to obey?
         20. I WAS ONCE THINKING MY LIFE WAS BEHIND ME & I'D NEVER ACCOMPLISHED MUCH FOR THE LORD, & for my WHOLE life's work I only had my own little FAMILY & my own CHILDREN to show for it, living in the equivalent of a tent by the wayside watching over nothing but ONE TINY LITTLE FLOCK with seemingly nothing but WOOD in my hands, no gold, no job, no home, no NOTHING but those LITTLE LIVES that He had given me to rule with the authority of His WORD!
         21. BUT AT LAST GOD SPOKE & SAID, "WHAT IS THAT IN THY HAND?" "Nothing, Lord! Nothing but an old worn-out wooden rod & a few dumb little kids who seem sometimes more like goats than sheep! What are these amongst so many? I guess I'll never be anything! It's already too late!"
         22. BUT AGAIN GOD SAID, "WHAT IS THAT IN THY HAND?" (See Exo.4:2.) And still I questioned, "What do you MEAN, Lord?--YOU can see what I have in my hands!--NOTHING! Nothing but this ROD & my little LAMBS! What can I do with THESE? They're NOTHING! We're NOBODY!" But He said, "If you will go in MY NAME & say only that I have sent thee, I will do GREAT THINGS which thou knowest not of!"
         23. SO IT SEEMED I WAS CASTING THE ROD OF HIS WORD ON BARREN GROUND! But suddenly it became a writhing, BITING, STINGING SERPENT which TORMENTED them which were disobedient, until, as God had said, "I will make thee a sharp-toothed threshing instrument which shall thresh the nations as chaff & rip with violence the pillows from under the arms of them which sit at ease in Zion!"
         24. SO NEVER BELITTLE THE LITTLE THINGS OR LITTLE ONES! If you're nothing but a nursemaid to your own or maybe even somebody else's children, sitting there alone in the nursery, helpless, hopeless & despairing, sometimes in the midst of bedlam & wondering what you could possibly do with nothing but a BIBLE & those BABES in your hands, think of MOSES & ME!--WE LED HIS LITTLE CHILDREN into a PROMISED LAND to RULE the WORLD!--Amen?
         25. AND THIS SAME STAFF OF GOD'S GOLDEN WORDS WILL CONTINUE TO LEAD THE LITTLE LAMBS of our present sheep through the Great Tribulation into the Promised Land of the Kingdom of God on Earth, long after their Moses has died on this mountain! But I will view from the HEAVENLY HEIGHTS of the SPIRIT World the FINAL FULFILLMENT of the TRUE mission of GOD'S RULING ROD through His LITTLE LAMBS of TODAY as they become the REIGNING RULERS of the World of TOMORROW! Hallelujah!
         26. DO YOU FOLLOW ME? WILL YOURS?--That depends on how good YOU take CARE of them, TRAIN them & TEACH them now to KNOW & to WIELD the ROD of His witnessing WORDS of TODAY--if you are FAITHFUL SHEPHERDS & SHEPHERDESSES of His sheep & our LITTLE LAMBS!
         27. ARE YOU A GOOD SHEPHERD OR SHEPHERDESS OF YOUR FLOCK?--Or merely a money-minded HIRELING who FLEES from the WOLVES at the door of your fold every time the going gets TOUGH!--"The GOOD shepherd layeth down HIS life for the SHEEP!"--Jn.10:11.
         28. "WHAT IS THAT IN THY HAND?" DO YOU KNOW THE WORD & HOW TO WIELD THIS ROD of His authority?--Then USE it to save your flock from the wolves & to LEAD your LITTLE LAMBS into the safety of HIS FOLD forever!--They're ALL God has given you that can follow you from THIS World into the NEXT!
         29. ARE YOU LEADING, GUARDING & GUIDING THEM WITH THE ROD OF HIS WORD IN YOUR HAND TODAY?--Tomorrow will be too late! With His WORD & LAMBS in our hearts & hands we can WIN the WORLD for Jesus!--Amen?--God bless & keep YOURS for JESUS!--What is that in THY hand? o

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