A ROSE BY ANOTHER NAME!
DO 1858
10/84
--We are sheep made to look like wolves by our enemies!
1. ALL THE FALSE CULTS & RELIGIONS TRY THEIR BEST, LIKE THE DEVIL HAS FROM THE BEGINNING, TO DECEIVE FIRST WITH GENUINE TRUTHS IN THEIR ORIGINAL SALES PITCHES.--And let's face it, that's what it is, salesmanship, just as it is with us! After all, preaching the Gospel is salesmanship, & the better salesman you are, the better you preach the Gospel & the better you convince people to believe & receive the Lord! And all these false cults & isms & religions & philosophies & all the rest, whatever you want to call them--some of them even call themselves sciences, like Christian Science & Technology of the Unified Field, blah blah--all start off with some truths. Their major pitch in the beginning is what is true & what people can recognise as being true & what they can sense is true & what they actually find is beneficial & does heal'm & does bring'm peace of mind & does do'm good, the truths, even truths which are taught in the Bible! So they wrap up their lies with truths!
2. We are not wrapping up lies in some truth. I might go to the opposite extreme & say we're wrapping up a whole lot of Truth & all Truth with a little bit of camouflage on these Posters so they won't necessarily recognise that it's the same people with the same Message.
3. BUT WE ARE NOT WRAPPING UP A HEATHEN, SATANIC RELIGION & THE LIES OF THE DEVIL WITH A LITTLE BIT OF TRUTH! [When we] tell them we're missionaries, teachers, social workers or whatever, it's all completely true. We are all of these! We are simply coming in & doing our best not to reveal our unpopular identity, our bad-publicity identity image before we have a chance to give them the Truth & show them that we're not as bad as we're pictured & that we are true Christians & preachers of the Gospel & we are preaching the Truth! (Maria: We're just using a few different tactics & different names initially to get our foot in the door to be able to be accepted until we can give them the real Message!)
4. EVEN IN THE EARLY CHURCH THEY CHANGED NAMES--EVERY NEW CHRISTIAN CHOSE A NEW NAME! That was a common practice of the Early Church & it's recorded right in the New Testament time & again where they changed their names. Now why did they change their names? You say, "Well, because most of them had names of heathen gods & that sort of thing." Well, that was part of it perhaps, but a lot of it was for security, just like we do, so they wouldn't be known & recognised by the same names & thus recognised by their enemies.
5. LET ME TELL YOU, ALL THROUGH THE BIBLE THERE WAS A LOT OF SECURITY! You will find all through the New Testament that they will say "a certain man" or "a certain woman" or "a certain city," "a certain place." They will use terms that deliberately conceal the exact person or place or city or event or time, etc., for security protection of those people & places. I think that self-protection--self-preservation, as the World calls it the first law of nature--is something very important for us in order to survive to continue our work. (Maria: Governments have done that ever since the beginning!)
6. THEREFORE IT IS CERTAINLY WISE FOR US TO [AVOID] BEING LINKED OR ASSOCIATED WITH CERTAIN NAMES OF CERTAIN GROUPS WHICH HAVE RECEIVED A LOT OF VERY BAD, ADVERSE PUBLICITY, INCLUDING A LOT OF THEIR LIES! Talking about lies, they have lied about us right & left, fast & furious! So to avoid being identified with the false image that the World has given us--not our fault--we have to try to keep from being identified with that false image which is really not true & is not so. So what's wrong with that?
7. IF WE'VE GOTTEN A BAD NAME THROUGH THE LIES OF THE DEVIL, THEN WHY NOT CHANGE NAMES TO A NEW NAME THAT HAS NOT YET GOTTEN THAT BAD PUBLICITY & SUFFERED SO MANY LIES?--So we did! God Himself gave us the names. So when that other name also got a bad image--the Devil gave us a deliberate false image with all of his lies so that the picture the World had of us under that name was false--we had to change our name to something else that hasn't bred that many lies & hasn't created such a false image of us.
8. WE CERTAINLY DON'T WANT TO BE IDENTIFIED WITH THESE FALSE PICTURES OF US & FALSE CONCEPTS OF US WHICH HAVE RECEIVED SO MUCH BAD PUBLICITY & SO MANY LIES OF THE DEVIL & THE ENEMY! Why should we stick our necks out & be identified with something that isn't even true? Their picture of us under this name or that name or the other name is what the newspapers have said & what our enemies have lied about us! Why should we present ourselves as being like that just by using the same name that the Devil has lied about & created a false picture & false image of? Why be identified with that false image, that false picture, that bad publicity? Once the Devil has given one name a very bad name, so to speak, made it a bad name by his lies & his false picture of us, his evil images of us, what's in a name?--It's certainly wise for us to change it or operate under some other name or no name but Jesus', as we often do!
9. THAT IS NOT THE SAME AS THE WAY THESE FALSE CULTS & RELIGIONS COME IN, UNDER THE GUISE OF TRUTH TO CLOAK AN EVIL, BITTER PILL OF THE DEVIL'S OWN RELIGION, WOLVES IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING! But on the other hand, true sheep as we are, we don't want to come in under wolf's clothing either & scare the people to death! It's the Devil that has tried to put that wolf's skin on us sheep by his bad publicity! He's the one that's tried to make us look like wolves, not us! Not the Lord, not even the people, but the Devil & our enemies try to make us sheep look like wolves!
10. SO IF THE DEVIL HAS GIVEN US THE NAME OF "WOLF, WOLF," WHY SHOULD WE CONTINUE TO USE THAT NAME THAT CONJURES UP IN THEIR MIND NOTHING BUT A WOLF, WHEN WE'RE REALLY SHEEP? Well, let's just use another sheepish name that means something more sheepy to people & something good, which we are! The other names were good too before the Devil made'm sound bad. (Maria: --Or change our methods & tactics!--From putting out TKs on the streets to putting out colour posters!) Yes, anything so that we look different from the lying image, the false picture that Satan has given the World of us, which is not true.
11. WE COME IN PREACHING THE TRUTH, REAL TRUTH!--NOT JUST THE SKIN OR THE PEELING, BUT CLEAR TO THE CORE! It's all truth, real religion, true Christian faith, true belief in Jesus Christ the Son of God & to follow Him, serve Him & love others! That's our whole Message--Love! But the Devil has even twisted that & turned that around to make that sound evil. Because sex is a part of it, he tries to make the whole thing sound like a sex cult & they've even used that term, "the free sex cult," like whenever we say love, we mean sex, which is not true! A lot of times we may use sex when we really mean love, so in some ways it's the other way around!
12. SO WHY SHOULD WE KEEP ON APPEARING AS THE DEVIL HIMSELF HAS BRANDED US? He himself has given this name or that name a bad name & made it appear to be bad by his lies. He's trying to cloak a sheep in wolf's clothing, while he cloaks his wolves in sheep's clothing! So why should we accept his wolfskin? The best thing for us to do is to get out from under it & show that we're sheep again & choose a more sheepish name!--Or show them that we are sheep & don't stay under the false wolfskin that the Devil has given us & that the World would recognise us by because he's given it so much publicity.
13. GET OUT FROM UNDER IT! THROW OFF THE WOLF'S CLOTHING HE'S TRIED TO CLOTHE YOU WITH! YOU'RE GOD'S TRUE SHEEP, YOU'RE NOT WOLVES! Show your true colours as sheep! Continue to preach the Truth! We haven't hidden the Truth as far as the Gospel is concerned, as far as Jesus is concerned, as far as Love is concerned--we're open about it! We openly preach God, Jesus, Love, the Bible, etc. So go ahead & preach those full blast, we can't hide those! But what we need to get rid of is the Devil's brand that he's tried to put on us, the Devil's false wolf's clothing that he's tried to throw over us so that we'd be shot at & trapped & killed as though we were wolves!
14. IF WE, AS TRUE SHEEP & SHEEP TO THE CORE, HONEST TRUE SHEEP PREACHING THE TRUTH, ARE BRANDED BY THE DEVIL'S FALSE LIES & BAD PUBLICITY AS WOLVES, THEN THE SMARTEST THING FOR US TO DO IS FIGHT IT OFF & REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE BRAND! If he's made that name a bad brand by his lies & made you look like a wolf, then for God's sake get out from under it! Run away from that kind of image & that kind of brand. Let's throw off that false wolf's clothing he's tried to put on us & show the people the Truth, show the people Love & Jesus & our sheepishness, the true us! And if it takes changing our name to get rid of a bad name, or even changing tactics to get rid of a bad image that the Devil's lies have given us as wolves, then for God's sake, change names, change tactics, change methods! If he's attacked one form of witnessing, try another! There's always some way you can preach the Gospel, some way you can preach Love!
15. OUR TEACHERS IN [A CLOSED COUNTRY] CANNOT OPENLY PREACH JESUS OR CHRIST OR CHRISTIANITY BY ANY MEANS BECAUSE IT'S AN ANTI-CHRIST COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT. BUT WHENEVER YOU ARE LOVING & YOU SHOW LOVE, LET'S FACE IT, YOU SHOW GOD! If you are known to be sweet & patient & good & kind & loving, that's what God is, & you're preaching God, you're showing them what God is!--And they can see God in you even if you don't say a word! I've always said you've got to sell yourself first, & eventually if you've won them to you through Love & you've won their confidence, then you're able to give them Jesus & real Salvation! So you can't always openly witness exactly what you are. If our teachers in [a closed country] had, they'd have lost their jobs on the spot, they'd have lost their opportunity to even show Love!
16. SO IF SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO BE, AS THE GUY SAID, "RED LIKE A RADISH"--look red on the outside, look a bit dragonish on the outside or even a little bit wolfish--in order to make them think you are one of them, at least temporarily at some kind of test or hearing or even to the other side, appear to be somewhat like them, this is not contrary to Scripture. Josh always used to use that Scripture, "As deceivers yet true"--& that's true! (2Cor.6:8). We can't go around broadcasting [everything] to everybody , especially not to the Enemy.
17. [W]e're invaders from Outer Space, here literally to overthrow the Devil & his World rule! So we're certainly not to go around bragging about exactly who we are & what we are if we want to survive, & we often have to look like & even pretend to be one of them, part of them!--Dress , look like , act like , talk like [them], just the absolute opposite of what we really are underneath!
18. THERE ARE A FEW CASES WHERE WE HAVE TO BE SHEEP, YOU MIGHT SAY, IN WOLF'S CLOTHING, voluntarily donned in order to fool authorities & anti-Christ enemies. Any fool ought to know that you can't dash into the midst of wolves looking like a sheep, even though we are sheep in the midst of wolves. Jesus said, "I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, therefore be ye wise as serpents"--even if you have to look like a serpent sometimes--"& harmless as doves!" (Mt.10:16)
19. SO CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL. WE ARE THE TRUE SHEEP. We're sheep to the core, we're the Truth to the core! We're not trying to lead them into a false cult, a false religion or a false doctrine. We have the true Gospel, we have the Truth, we have the only Salvation, we have Jesus, we have Love, & Love by any other name smells just as sweet! Amen?
20. AND IF THAT TAKES DONNING ANOTHER NAME TO DO IT THAT HASN'T HAD BAD PUBLICITY & HASN'T GOTTEN THE LOOK OF WOLVES, THEN WHY NOT? I mean, a sheep by another name is just as sweet! Right? And a rose by another name smells just as sweet. You still have the lovely, loving fragrance of Heaven! You still have the beautiful flavour of Love! You still have the beauty of Truth! If the Devil has made what was once a good appearance into a bad appearance, then just change it!--Change the name, change the appearance, change the looks, change the operation! Sell beautiful colour posters on the street instead of little four-page Komic leaflets that they all know by now & know who's behind them. Change your tactics, change your ammunition, change your approach, change your field, change anything but the Truth & your Love & your God, because He's the Lord & He changes not! (Mal.3:6) PTL! So don't change Jesus!
21. AS LONG AS WE STILL HAVE THE LORD & WE'RE STILL LOVING & KIND & GOOD & PURE & TRUE & GENUINE SHEEP, THE LORD WILL BLESS US! Regardless of what kind of a brand the Devil tries to put on us, regardless of what kind of false clothing of his own he tries to make us wear in the eyes of others, we're still God's true sheep!--Loving, tender, gentle, harmless & we have the Truth! And if merely changing the name or the brand or the clothing that the Devil has tried to put on you helps you get out from under his opposition & enemies, for God's sake, do it!
22. CHANGE YOUR CLOTHING! WE DID THAT IN THE EARLY DAYS, THAT'S FOR SURE! We soon found out that long hair & freaky clothes didn't help our ministry any because everybody hated hippies except the hippies themselves! Then once we had the hippies, we didn't have to keep the freaky clothes & long hair. We cut the hair & put on System clothes so we would escape the Devil's brand of being wolves & hippies. We took off the wolves' clothing & we threw off the false brand & we made ourselves to appear like the System. We clothed ourselves like the wolves of the System in order to appear like them, even though we were sheep underneath.
23. SO ODDLY ENOUGH, AS SATAN OFTEN OPERATES AS A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING, WE MAY SOMETIMES HAVE TO OPERATE AS SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING! When you're amongst wolves, brother, you'd better learn to howl so they'll think you're one of'm! You'd better learn to appear a little more like the System when you're with Systemites! When you're with the Romans, do as the Romans do.
24. THERE ARE EXAMPLES THROUGHOUT THE BIBLE!--Time & time again! I don't have time to go into all those Bible stories.
25. (MARIA: BUT TO MAKE IT VERY CLEAR AGAIN, THEY MAY HAVE TO BECOME ONE WITH THE ANTI-CHRISTS & THE WOLVES IN [A CLOSED COUNTRY] AS TEACHERS, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT THEY'RE TO ELIMINATE ALL WITNESS IN THEIR CLASSES.) No, no, no! They are merely to try to hide their identity. We are to try to hide our true identity from all wolves, of course. We are trying to hide ourselves from the Enemy. For God's sake, you certainly don't want to go in looking like a sheep to the enemies, but you are to seek the sheep out secretly, those amongst the wolves who are sheep, & try to win them to the Lord.
26. (MARIA: TO TAKE A CONCRETE EXAMPLE, IN [ONE CLOSED COUNTRY'S] CLASSROOM THEY'VE FOUND THAT THEY'RE PROBABLY GOING TO HAVE BOTH SHEEP & WOLVES, but just because there are wolves in that classroom doesn't mean they're just going to be quiet & never say anything about Love, never say anything as a witness & never try to get anywhere with their class.) Exactly. We're still to show Love, which is really God, & a loving spirit, a sweet spirit.
27. SO WE CAN'T CONCEAL GOD ALTOGETHER, WE CAN'T HIDE OUR LOVE & OUR LOVING SPIRIT. Although technically, according to the Constitution [of this closed country], they have religious freedom, in practice the Communists do everything they can to squelch it. So in a sense, if it's not actually against the law, it certainly is against the policy & against reason & against practice to openly preach Christ & openly witness & openly win souls, or you'd soon lose your job or your head!
28. SO IN THE CASE OF ONE OF OUR TEACHERS WITH ALL THOSE COMMUNIST WOLVES IN HIS CLASSES, TECHNICALLY HE WAS NOT DISOBEYING THE LAW IN ANY WAY or even practicing contrary to Communist practice as far as preaching religion or Christ or God, but he could still show them God & show them Christ in his own behaviour as a loving, kind, patient, sweet sheep! He was a living example of Jesus so that they could see Jesus in him, they could see God in him, because they saw Love in him. This is the way we have to do it in closed countries & anti-Christ countries & even some [non-Christian] countries , etc.
29. THEN WHEN FINALLY HE FOUND THE TRUE SHEEP AMONGST HIS STUDENTS THAT HE REALLY WON AS VERY CLOSE FRIENDS & COULD TRUST NOT TO BETRAY HIM, HE THEN WITNESSED CHRIST TO THEM & WON'M TO THE LORD!--Got'm saved & filled with the Spirit & they're witnessing now! (Maria: But there was a stage in between just being a sample himself in his own personal life, & winning these friends so he could secretly tell them about Jesus. There was another stage that I don't think we should eliminate, & it's the sharing of the Word in a very milky form. It's one that he did very successfully, sharing with his class thought after thought on Love & happiness & peace & joy from the MOP, & songs, they'd memorised 20 by the end of the class!) Yes, that's what I'm talking about, using materials which show Love & show the principles of Love & of God & Christian faith without actually naming Christ or God or Christianity in any way. They can use quotes from the MOP, songs from MWM & all kinds of things to illustrate & to show the Truth without necessarily naming it by a name that's unlawful, illegal or unpopular.
30. SO AS I SAY, A ROSE BY ANOTHER NAME IS JUST AS SWEET!--And I think we made our point, that to change our name if the Devil has made that into a bad name, is certainly not wrong, it's wisdom. To change our brand from a brand the Devil has made bad & to sound evil, changing it is just being smart, survival, saving our life! If the Devil's tried to cloak you in wolf's clothing when you're really a sheep, then for God's sake, toss it off & show what sheep you really are by not necessarily using the same name or the same look that the Devil has branded you with, or even that you used to brand yourself with.
31. IF HE'S MADE THAT INTO SOMETHING EVIL NOW, EITHER YOUR LOOK OR YOUR NAME, THEN FOR GOD'S SAKE, GET RID OF IT! Take on a new look, a new name that people are not familiar with & don't already have a prejudice against & are not already programmed by the Devil to hate & resist so that they slam the door in your face or knock the lit out of your hand because they know who you are!--Or they think they know who you are. Actually, they only know what the Devil has called you & what the Devil has made you appear to be, therefore they don't like you & hate you. So change your name, change your tactics, change your looks if it helps you to reveal the Truth & proclaim the Gospel!--In Jesus' name, amen!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family