NIVEA OF THE SEA!        DFO 1049         15/9/81

         1. THE LORD LOVES A MYSTERY!--AND I LOVE A MYSTERY! I'LL BET YOU LOVE A MYSTERY TOO! Mystery stories are some of the most popular stories in the World, even the Bible is full of mysteries & conundrums, & in a sense, guessing games. He lays down a mystifying puzzle before us, then He keeps giving us cues & clues to what the solution is & how to solve it & where to find it etc., little by little sometimes, & we get so proud of ourselves & He gets proud of us too when the little pile of findings & solutions begins to grow & the jigsaw puzzle picture begins to fill out & we begin to solve it & understand it. Even in these last days, man's love of mysteries has not abated. The Lord really loves to play games with us, believe it or not.
         2. God sets choices before us all the time! That's almost the name of the game, this whole game of life, is constant choices. We have to make thousands of decisions every day, tiny little decisions of every kind of what we're going to do & what we're going to see. He doesn't always demand that you do a certain thing, you have a range of choice like wavelengths on a radio, & you can choose what station you want to listen to between certain limitations of the frequencies of your particular radio or waveband, you've got a lot of choices inbetween.
         3. The Lord likes hunting games, seeking games, guessing games, mysteries! He likes you to have to hunt for it, to look for it, seek for it & then knocks on doors to see which one's going to open; & when one opens, He likes for you to have to ask for it. Because this is all exercising your faith in Him & His divine guidance & magnanimity, His parental love. It shows you trust in Him when you obey Him, even if you don't know what's at the end of the road. (Mt.7:7)
         4. It shows you have faith in Him & His Word if He tells you to do a certain thing: "Now go that direction, now you're getting warm, now you're getting warmer, you're getting hot, you're getting hot, you're getting so close, oh, you're almost burning, you're so close!" He gives you cues & clues that way, & if you start going the wrong direction, let me tell you, He very, very soon warns you that you're cooling off or you're growing colder!
         5. HE SAYS THAT AS WE BACKSLIDE & GET AWAY FROM THE LORD WE BECOME "ALIENATED FROM THE LIFE OF GOD, darkened in our understanding, until we're past feeling." (Eph.4:18,19) You've resisted the truth, resisted His will, resisted obedience, drifted further away from the Lord, alienated from the life of God, until having resisted the truth so long you become darkened in your understanding. Until finally the worst & the last stage of all, you're so cold & frozen that you can't even feel any more--past feeling, & that's what's happened to some of you folks.
         6. My Mother used to say, "Don't talk about God's best & His second best & so on. As far as the will of God is concerned, there's only one best, that's His best, His first choice! And if you take second choice, so-called, His second best is not really His second best, it's your best, not His!--Because it's not His highest & best will & the thing He wants you to do the most! And this dream illustrates this very thing.
         7. A lot of you are getting away with what you call God's second best. You know it's not the highest & best that He called you to on the mission field, to preach the Gospel in all the World to every creature, because you weren't willing to pay the price.--Like a lot of you still left there in the States or in Europe. For awhile you said you were going to go back & you were going to get a job & go to the field, to go South, but you just got stuck in a rut & you drifted further & further from the Lord, alienated from the life of God, darkened in your understanding.
         8. You weren't willing to really work for it & search for it & seek it & find it & get the answers & really depend on God by faith & follow Him closely & live by faith & seek God with all your heart & mind & soul constantly in order to get the answers & get support & get fruit & win souls & really witness!
         9. You've gotten tired of this game God plays with us that He enjoys & that we enjoy who love the excitement, the suspense, the thriller, the mystery, the surprises, the variety & the thrill of living by faith, the excitement of the challenge of stepping out on nothing by faith & letting God just put something there for you to stand on by the time your foot hits the ground! Praise God! I love it!--Don't you? It's thrilling!--It's exciting!--It gives zest to life!--Sparkle!"
         10. BUT ANYWAY, "WHAT ABOUT THAT DREAM, DAD? You got off to preaching us a sermon!" It's about a sea goddess named Nivea of the Sea, & it's one of the most peculiar strange odd dreams I ever did have! It was at night, it was dark; in a sense I was in the dark. We were at a junk yard full of building material & there was an old TSC sign standing there, & then there was an old Huntington Beach sign standing there. I decided to pick out the one that said, "Huntington Beach", because we needed some kind of a name for the place we were living. I thought, "Well, TSC, we've had that. Huntington Beach, that's got good memories & that's good old happy days of yore, let's take the nice Huntington Beach sign!"
         11. This is exactly what some of you people are doing in going back to the States & back to Europe & back to home again. You're going back to the old things, back to the old ways, you're trying to revive old memories & old ways of doing things & old contacts, old friends, you're really going backward!
         12. It was like we were trying to revive this by-gone day & revive old TSC. We put up the "Huntington Beach" sign on the TSC ranch. We used to have a sign out on the highway to attract attention there to get them to come out & hear the Gospel & join us, become new disciples. Well, in this dream, instead of attracting new disciples do you know what it attracted?--Robbers! So that we had to pick up our guns to warn'm away & shoo'm off! Instead of attracting new disciples & bearing good fruit, your going back & trying to revive the past has borne very bad fruit!
         13. THE NEXT SCENE, I WAS IN THIS SORT OF A PRETTY SPANISH COURTYARD OR PATIO. It was almost sort of like in a way some of you have gotten sort of settled down, & maybe some of you have gotten settled down even on the field, because it was quite obviously a sort of a Spanish-American, Latin-American house. Suddenly two or three very beautiful native girls ran playfully through the patio topless, so I jumped up & ran after one of them! She wasn't in the bedroom, so I quickly ran on through the bedroom out the door & finally ran out of the house looking all around trying to find her. She was trying to entice me somewhere outdoors into the field.
         14. Some of you have been enticed to the mission field by some beautiful, sexy appealing enticing Goddess of that field who wants you to come & help her people, but you've gotten settled down & she's still trying to entice you out into the field & preach the Gospel to all her country. There's a real danger of that happening in some places in South America--Central America & Mexico particularly which is easy to get at, where a lot of you are piling up to where you bump into each other on every street corner litnessing!
         15. NEXT I FOUND MYSELF IN THIS TRAILER FULL OF WATER! A lot of you folks have at least gone mobile, but you find yourself still sort of drowning in the sea, or at sea as to what you're supposed to do or where you're supposed to go & where you should minister, & in a sense you're still trying to revive the old past, like Mom & Dad did with their little flock 15 to 20 years ago.
         16. But don't drown in it! Don't get stuck in it!--Because we were drowning in this trailer! The trailer was full of water almost to the ceiling & it seemed like we were locked in, we just couldn't get out! Have you gotten into a mobile ministry that instead of leading you to the field has just gotten you locked in to where you can't get out & you're stuck with your mobile outfit? Well, we were desperate & it seemed like the water was rising higher all the time.
         17. Suddenly we saw a group of native kids passing by. I said, "Quick, quick! We've got to get their attention somehow!" And I looked around & saw this sign that said "NIVEA of the Sea!" I grabbed the sign & stuck it in the window & banged real hard on the window trying to attract their attention. Suddenly they saw us & ran over to the window happy & excited & they were saying, "Grandpa! Grandpa! There's Grandpa!" And they got the idea & said, "Yes, yes! Quick! Go get somebody to help Grandpa to get out!"
         18. I consider child evangelism a very worthwhile mission field--even if it's in your native country--because the children are a completely brand new fresh mission field full of native children, many of whom have never really heard the Gospel!
         19. WELL, IT CAME TO ME AS CLEAR AS ANYTHING, NIVEA OF THE SEA IS SOME KIND OF A HINDERING SPIRIT that is trying to drown us & suffocate us & choke us & quench our spirit, quench our fire, quench our ministry, lock us in & bind us in some old kind of plan & program. And another thing that's hindered a lot of you people from going is that ocean, that sea between you & the foreign field has really been a hindering spirit, a real seemingly insurmountable obstacle.
         20. So what you need to do is pray desperately! Put up a sign; "Nivea of the Sea is keeping me from going! Help!" Bang on the window! Knock on the windows of Heaven & ask God & His precious little angels & spirits of Heaven to help you get out of that mess & not be blocked or hindered by the sea or the evil hindering spirits or Niveas of the Sea, but to ask for help.
         21. That is the dream & that is the meaning thereof, as Daniel said. "Behold, the Lord hath given the King a dream that has been revealing your present situation, & the past as well as the future!" So may the Lord bless & keep you & help you to get out of it & get going & on your way & liberate you & free you from these old traps of these old ways & the old places & the old faces & the old friends & the old jobs & the old System & all the traps of the Devil!
         22. "Forget the things that are behind, press forward to the things that are before, & seek the HIGH calling of God that is in Christ Jesus!" (Ph.3:13,14) Don't settle for anything less than the best! Don't sink down in despair! Don't drown in your sorrows! Try to get out! Make an effort! Ask for help & I know God will answer--& others will answer too. Amen?


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family