HEALING & REWARDS!
DO 1906
2/85
--You Can Keep'm or Lose'm!
[HomeARC note (10/98): The Charter states the Family's current principles, policies and attitudes regarding faith healing and getting outside medical attention, especially in regards to children.]
1. IF YOU RUN AROUND OUTSIDE THE TOWER OF GOD'S PROTECTION, THE DEVIL WILL SCORCH YOU WITH HIS FIRE! If you don't stay close to the Lord in His will, obeying Christ, the Lord will let the Devil touch you! Otherwise He won't let him touch a hair of your head if you're right where He wants you!--Unless He wants to show what faith you've got, like He did with Job, what perseverance you've got, what patience you've got! Even though it seemed Job was a perfect man & thought he'd never sinned & thought he was absolutely righteous & perfect, even his counsellors proved to him that he wasn't perfect, that there must be something wrong or God wouldn't have let this happen! Well, what did he find out was wrong? Why had God let it happen? Job was not perfect. "Let every man be found a liar but God be found true! All have sinned & come short of the glory of God, there is none righteous, no not one!" (Rom.3:4,10,23)
2. THEN JOB WAS A SINNER! HE WAS NOT PERFECT! THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH JOB! WHAT WAS IT?--The very fact that he thought he was perfect, he claimed to be perfect! He protested to God & his counsellors that he was perfect: "Why have You done this to me, Lord? I'm perfect, I've never done a thing wrong! Why did You do this to me?" Job, the epitome of patience, the example held up to both the church & the World as a great sample of the patience of a righteous man, a good man, was actually the World's worst example & the church's worst example & the greatest example God ever gave the World of a self-righteous man! He was a wicked, vile, filthy, iniquitous, disobedient sinner in the eyes of God, by even thinking he was righteous & even thinking he was perfect! Until finally even one of his accusers hit the nail on the head & said: "Can a man be found more righteous than God? You're acting like you're more righteous than God!" (Job 4:17; 9:2)
3. THAT IS THE WORST SIN OF ALL, TO EVEN HAVE THE SLIGHTEST IDEA THAT YOU'RE A LITTLE BIT MORE RIGHTEOUS THAN GOD, THAT GOD SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS TO YOU! Do you know what that is? That is the very seed & the root of murmuring! Do you get it? When you murmur, when you complain, when you bellyache about something, if it's something your parents did or wouldn't let you do, then you're telling your parents that you're more righteous than they are!--That if you were boss, you would have let you do it & you would have done better & you wouldn't have done this or you wouldn't have done that!
4. LET ME TELL YOU, IF YOU START FIGHTING & ARGUING WITH GOD, I CAN TELL YOU WHO'S RIGHT & WHO'S WRONG! I have that much faith in God, even though I haven't understood some of the things He did to me & let happen to me & let happen to others--I have not understood'm & I still don't understand'm to this day--but I know one thing for sure, God is the One who was right! And no matter what is wrong with them & no matter what they did or didn't do, no matter how good it looked or whatever, somehow they were wrong!
5. POOR PETER PUPPET WHO HAS THAT HORRIBLE BIG LUMP ON HIS THROAT THAT'S STRANGLING HIM TO DEATH, DID YOU KNOW THAT AFTER WE PRAYED FOR HIM THE LORD HEALED IT? It went down to almost nothing! Then all of a sudden it started to grow again. I said to Maria, "Honey, I believe the Lord healed it in answer to our prayers!" I know God didn't fail. I know God cannot do that kind of wrong. [H]e lost his healing, & now it looks worse than ever! He just sent out a picture for the Magazine with his story, poor fellow, I guess in desperation for prayer & sympathy.--And boy, he needs it & you need to pray for him if he's going to live! Because if that thing keeps going on it's going to choke him to death, that huge big lump! I'll tell you, his faith looks like death itself, I mean his face!--Maybe his faith too, I don't know. But his face looks like death. And if God doesn't do something quickly, or if Peter Puppet doesn't do something quickly to please God & to remove whatever is offending God about him or his life or his habits or whatever he's doing so that God can heal him again, he's going to be gone soon!
6. I KNOW GOD DIDN'T FAIL! I know that better than I know that I'm sitting here or you're sitting there! You know God doesn't fail! You know God loves! You know God answers prayer! You know God loves Peter Puppet. You know He's sorry for him. You know that He feels for him & it hurts Him, His Heavenly Father, His Parent, maybe more than it hurts Peter Puppet. As we used to say when we spanked our children, "This hurts me more than it does you!" It seems I never could believe that when I was getting the spanking, but after I had to spank my own kids, then I realised that it really hurts to have to punish your children.
7. IT HURTS GOD TO HAVE TO LAY AN AFFLICTION LIKE THAT, OR LET THE DEVIL LAY AN AFFLICTION LIKE THAT ON PETER PUPPET! But there is something wrong somewhere, & it is not with God or His healing or His Saints that have prayed for Peter Puppet! Amen? There's something wrong, something that he is doing or not doing that is displeasing the Lord.
8. BUT I KNOW IT'S NOT GOD'S FAULT! I KNOW GOD DIDN'T FAIL, BECAUSE GOD DID HEAL HIM & HE HIMSELF SAYS IT WENT WAY DOWN TO ALMOST NOTHING! Why did the Lord allow the Devil, the Destroyer, to make it grow again? Cancers are of the Devil! If there's anything the Devil can create at all, it's destruction, sickness, illness & evil, that's about all.--So why? And everybody's wondering why, & everybody who gets his article & sees his photo is going to wonder why! "Lord, You let Peter Puppet make this wonderful series, the Luvvets. They've been blessed spiritually, financially, productively, fruitfully, everything except that horrible monster that's growing on Peter Puppet's neck!--Why?"
9. I SUPPOSE A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T EVEN WANT TO ASK WHY, THEY'RE AFRAID TO ASK WHY, BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE A REFLECTION ON GOD! It looks like the Lord failed. It looks like prayer didn't heal & doesn't heal. So when that sort of thing happens, you know what happens to most Christians?--They start getting very quiet. "Well, just hide it away, put it away, don't talk about it, don't think about it. It must be bad to think that God failed, that prayer failed, that healing failed, so let's just forget about it."--Savvy? Let's face it, isn't that the way you've sometimes felt about some things? God apparently wants to remind you of it for a reason!--Not only to teach Peter Puppet a lesson, but all of us a lesson!
10. "I THE LORD THY GOD AM A JEALOUS GOD & I WILL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME!" (Exo.20:3,5) That verse came straight from the Lord, direct prophecy! Is that his trouble? Is that the problem? Is there something he worships more than God? Is there something he loves more than God? Is it his puppets?
11. CAN YOU REALLY SAY THAT YOU'RE DOING IT FOR THE GLORY OF GOD, PETER PUPPET?--ENTIRELY FOR THE GLORY OF GOD, MOSTLY FOR THE GLORY OF GOD & BECAUSE YOU LOVE JESUS MOST OF ALL?--Is that why you're doing it, to please the Lord, to please Christ? Is that why you're making the puppets & the stories? I believe that he means to, & I believe that he wants to & I believe that has been his desire & motivation, most of all & most of the time. But if at any time at all he transgressed by loving those puppets more & serving those puppets more, if he in any way has given those puppets more love & time & attention & strength than God, then God is displeased!
12. --OR HAS HE NEGLECTED THE WORD? Has he been too busy making puppets & puppet shows to really live in the Word? God says, "I have exalted My Word above My Name!" (Psa.138:2) There's nothing more important than God's Word because He is the Word! "In the beginning was the Word!" (Jn.1:1) And the Word was God! The Word is God! God is the Word! He is Love! And if you don't have the Word, Beloved, you haven't got God! If you don't have Love, you haven't got the Lord!
13. WHAT DID HE DO? DID HE NEGLECT THE WORD FOR HIS PUPPETS? DID HE NEGLECT HIS PRAYER FOR HIS PUPPETS? Something is wrong somewhere or God would have long ago healed him. There have been too many people praying for him, including me. And he says that God did heal him when we first prayed for him & he first took that stand of faith & he threw away the medicines & the Laetrile & the diet & all that stuff, a ridiculous diet! I mean, there's a sensible diet. There's one extreme one way & another extreme the other way. But a normal, sensible, healthful clean food diet was all he needed, & when he did all that, the Lord healed him.
14. WHAT HAPPENED, PETER PUPPET? WHAT DID YOU DO THAT CAUSED YOU TO LOSE YOUR HEALING? Let me tell you, you can't lose your Salvation, it is a gift of God! Healing too, in a sense, is a gift of God, but you can lose it by disobedience. But healing is different & I've told you that before. Once you have been given back your life or your health, you are living on borrowed time that is no longer yours & you owe it every bit to God! You owe your whole life to God!
15. JESUS DIED FOR YOU, HE SAVED YOUR LIFE, HE SAVED YOUR ETERNAL LIFE, SO YOU OWE HIM YOUR LIFE & EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT! And when God heals you, you owe Him that healing & that health that came through that healing. You had better use that life & that healing & that health & whatever it is that God healed for the glory of God & devote it entirely & fully to Him & His use from that time on without reservation, without holding back, without keeping back anything whatsoever, but wholly to God, or God will take it away from you! "And the last estate of the man can be worse than the first!" (Mat.12:45). You can lose your healing!
16. WITH THAT HEALTH, THAT NEW LIFE, THAT HEALED MEMBER, SOME HAVE GONE OUT & FORGOTTEN WHO THEY OWED IT TO, forgotten Who they owed that health to, that life to, that healed member, & they have used it for the glory of the flesh or the glory of self, or the glory of the opinions of men, or selfishness, or their own ideas, or their own disobediences!--Misused the miraculous, supernatural, eternal Life that God has given! It is eternal! The kind of Life God gives for healing is something which comes from His eternal Life to heal your physical body, your fleshly earthly life. It's supernatural, it's miraculous, it's Heavenly Life, it's Godly Life, it's God's Own Life! Into that body of Adam which was nothing but mud, dust, dirt & water, He breathed into him the breath of Life, God's Life, & man became a living soul! (Gen.2:7)
17. IN A SENSE, HEALING IS THE LIFE OF GOD THAT'S GIVEN TO YOU, A BIT OF GOD'S LIFE, a little more of the breath of life He's breathed into that injured arm or that broken heart or that healed member or that healed neck!
18. [Peter Puppet] has either got to get healed quick or he is going to die! You say, "Dad, you're really pretty rough on people!"--Well, so is God!
19. BUT IF YOU SAY, "GOD DIDN'T HEAL ME, I'M HOLDING IT AGAINST GOD NOW," that very attitude can kill you! God hates that attitude almost more than anything else! It is self-righteousness, it is accusing God of unrighteousness! "Can a man be found more righteous than God?"--No! Never! No matter what God does, it's more righteous than anything man could ever do!
20. SO DON'T ACCUSE GOD, DON'T BLAME THAT THING ON GOD, IT'S NOT GOD'S FAULT! He may have let it happen again, grow again or whatever it is--in your life, mine or someone else's--He may have even let the Devil do it as punishment to you, as child-training, as chastening to try to make you learn a lesson & repent of your sins & repent of that wickedness & iniquity & that fault you have or whatever it is & get right with God & begin to please God & do right & use that healing & use that body for His glory in absolute obedience & absolute dedication, wholly dedicated unto God, which is your reasonable service!--Your body presented to God as a living sacrifice, holy, & in this case also entirely, wholely, W-H-O-L-E-L-Y! (Rom.12:1) If you don't do that, He can take it away, you can lose it. And from what I gather from the Word, it seems that it's very difficult to ever get it back the second time, because God has learned that He can't trust you with it! It's like backsliding.
21. YOU HAD BETTER PRAY FOR PETER PUPPET OR HE'S NOT GOING TO LAST VERY LONG & there are not going to be very many more Luvvets unless the rest of them can carry it on without him! God healed it once, but will God heal it again? I don't know. (Maria: Did he ever testify to that healing?--If so, it wasn't anything that was very strong or impressive because I can't remember it.) I was shocked when I read in this article he first sent us how the lump had almost disappeared because I'd never heard he'd been healed! How come we never heard about the healing? That's another very important point. Oh, how my Mother used to stress this!
22. ONCE GOD HAS HEALED YOU, YOU HAD BETTER NEVER FORGET TO TESTIFY & TALK ABOUT IT & GIVE GOD THE GLORY--not the doctors or the medicine--& tell everybody how wonderful it was, what a miracle God did to heal you & constantly testify to your healing! Because if you don't give Him the glory or you don't constantly thank Him & praise Him for it, God will take it away!
23. SOME PEOPLE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT GOD IS REALLY GOING TO DO IT, THEY'RE NOT GOING TO TESTIFY THEY'RE HEALED UNTIL IT'S ALL GONE. But Peter Puppet's was virtually all gone & he still didn't testify.--At least not to us. Before my Mother was even healed she began thanking God for the healing, lifting up her hands & saying, "I give glory to God!" "Abraham, looking at his own body as good as dead, yet gave glory to God, knowing that God was able to accomplish that which He had promised!" (Heb.11:11,12) Was Peter Puppet waiting until it was all gone so he could take a real good picture without anything there, to brag that God had healed him? Why didn't he give us the information or give us the photos to show how much God had healed him? If you don't even thank God for partial healing or even before you're completely healed, you're not going to get it! If you don't even thank Him for getting better & being partially healed, He's not going to finish the job!
24. He should have launched out by faith & written us a strong letter of testimony telling how marvellously God had healed him! But now his face looks like death itself! So if you still want the Luvvets, you'd better pray for Peter Puppet, amen?
25. IN SOME CASES GOD IS A HARD MAN! I can be an old softy & a pushover sometimes, but I can get tough with you too, right? God's the same way, & we're to be like Him. He can be merciful, He can be forgiving, He can be loving, He can be sweet, kind, good, patient & just wait & wait & wait for you to repent & do better, etc., but finally, that's when God moves fast! If you don't repent & you don't get right with God & obey God & finally do what He wants you to do, dedicate your life to Him & give all to Jesus & serve the Lord & obey & please Him, especially if you get to the point where you're a poor testimony & a bad witness & a bad advertisement for God, He can--Bang!--Knock you out completely so that you are no longer a stumblingblock & a bad testimony & bad example!
26. I COULD ALMOST SAY THAT ONCE YOU'RE HEALED YOU'VE ALMOST GOTTA EARN YOUR HEALTH FROM THERE ON! You've got to give it to God completely or you'll lose it! God will judge you from then on by your works, & He will reward you according to your works & every deed done in the flesh & every word you speak, & His Word says so! (Mat.12:36,37; 16:27; Rom.2:6) Did you get it? You'll be held responsible for every idle word & every idle deed! He'll judge you according to your works! "What do you mean, Dad? You mean after we're saved & filled with the Spirit, God's still going to judge us according to our works?--Send us to Hell?"--No! Not to Hell, but He will judge you. A lot of the places where it says "damned" in the Bible, "they shall be damned," it does not mean sent to Hell, contrary to what the church wanted to make you think. It means judged or punished severely , even though you're saved!
27. HE SAID, "THEM WHICH SIN BEFORE ALL, REBUKE BEFORE ALL, THAT OTHERS ALSO MAY FEAR!" (1Tim.5:20) If your sin is a private sin, God will forgive you without publicly embarrassing you. But if you have committed sins that everybody knows about, everybody knows you're guilty of & you sin before all & it's been a sin that has hurt others & a sin which has hurt the faith of some & has been a bad testimony, caused others to stumble, God is going to have to punish you before all! He's going to have to humiliate you & punish you so that everybody that knew about your sin will know that God is dealing with you & God is punishing you.--To know that God is just, as well as merciful, & He will not let you get away with it unless you repent & change & make it right with both God & man, the congregation.
28. THANK GOD, THAT'S THE WONDERFUL THING ABOUT GOOD WORKS & THE GOOD THINGS YOU DO & THE SERVICES YOU PERFORM FOR THE LORD & THE WORKS YOU DO FOR GOD, the life & strength & energy you spend for the Lord & for others!--You're sowing good things now, you're sowing good deeds now, right? You're obeying & doing good things for people, good things for the Lord, devoting your whole life to Jesus, right? Do you know what He's going to do? You think you're sowing quite a lot, all that literature you've sowed & all those souls you've won & all those people you witnessed to & all that FFing you did & all the rest, "Boy, Lord, I really did a lot for You, I did a lot of work for You! I've done a lot for others."--It is almost nothing to what God is going to do for you in return!
29. "EYE HATH NOT SEEN, EAR HATH NOT HEARD, NEITHER HAS IT ENTERED INTO THE HEART OF MAN"--EVEN INTO HIS IMAGINATION! (1Cor.2:9) You think my pictures of Heaven are too exaggerated?--They're probably not exaggerated enough! I'm sure they're not beautiful enough! They're not gorgeous enough! The pleasures I depict are not enough! You can't even imagine what God has laid up in store for you! He says, "But the Spirit hath revealed it unto us!" (1Cor.2:10) You can know about it, He's revealing it to us with a new poster almost every day, praise God?--Much more than you ever sowed, much more than all the good you ever did! God is going to bless you abundantly, rain it down from the windows of Heaven so there shall not be even room enough to hold it, even if you give your tithe!--Pressed down, shaken together, running over so you can't even hold it all! (Mal.3:10; Lk.6:38)
30. YOU THINK YOU SOWED A LOT?--YOU HAVEN'T SOWED ANYTHING COMPARED TO WHAT GOD'S GOING TO LET YOU REAP & all the good & all the blessings & all the Heaven & all the pleasure & all the palaces! Oh, you have no idea of what God's got in store for you, much more than you've sowed, far more! You sowed one little life & out of your little life have come thousands, perhaps millions of Salvations & new lives for the Lord that you're going to meet in Heaven! Think of that!--Not just the ones you witnessed to & passed lit to & personally won to the Lord, but the ones that you have been instrumental in helping to win & helping others to win!
31. GOD'S CAMERA DOESN'T MISS A THING! HE'S RECORDING A VIDEO OF YOUR LIFE, OF EVERY SINGLE THING YOU DO & EVERYTHING YOU THINK, the whole thing, & some day you're going to reap the rewards for it all, both good & bad. Some are going to rise to shine like the stars with everlasting glory, others are going to rise to shame & contempt! (Dan.12:2) They might almost be ashamed they had to go to Heaven, I don't know, to face all the rest of us that gave our lives to Jesus & served the Lord full time. They're certainly going to be ashamed, the Bible says so, & they're even going to suffer contempt for their failures & disobediences that resulted in trouble for us & trouble for souls! Think of it!--Not just all the wicked & the unsaved that go to Hell, but even the people that go to Heaven!
32. YOU'RE GOING TO BE SORRY! YOU'RE GOING TO CRY! YOU'RE GOING TO WEEP IN HEAVEN! How do I know?--Because it says God's going to wipe away all your tears! (Rev.21:4) He's going to forgive you. There are probably going to be things you're going to be sorry for that you weren't even sorry for here before you died, that you didn't even realise you had to be sorry for. There's going to be a lot of straightening out Up There! It's maybe going to take years to straighten out a lot of things, going around apologising to people & thanking people & getting things right. Oh, there are so many things that are going to go on Up There that you never dreamed of! It's not all going to be floating around on flowery beds of ease & clouds playing a harp! You are going to make things right at last, apologise, thank, have a chance to straighten everything out, wipe away the tears!
33. BUT SOME ARE STILL GOING TO BE ASHAMED FOR THEIR FAILURES--TOO LATE!--Too late to undo, too late to save the souls they could have saved, too late to accomplish what they could have accomplished! It's going to be too late. Well, thank God there are still going to be a few people they can work on even in the New Earth. During the Millennium & New Earth some of them are going to be able to build up some restitution & do some repenting, & I think there are going to be a lot of church people working like everything to make up for all the witnessing they didn't do now! They're going to be doing it during the Millennium & even on the New Earth, think of that!
34. SO YOU'RE GOING TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR EVERYTHING, BOTH GOOD & BAD! You're going to get credit for the good & you're going to feel anguish & some sorrow for the bad. But eventually, thank the Lord, He's going to wipe it all away & wipe the tears away & there will be no more pain, sorrow or death! TTL? It doesn't say there's not going to be any when you get There, but eventually. PTL!
35. I THINK A LOT OF US ARE GOING TO BE SORRY WHEN WE SEE JESUS & REALISE HOW UNRIGHTEOUS WE ARE & HOW BAD WE WERE & WHAT MISERABLE FAILURES WE WERE COMPARED TO THE LORD & HIS LOVE & HIS GREAT HEART! Amen? I tell my wife almost every day what a mess I am, what a failure I am! I'm not near what I maybe might have been if I'd have done everything to please the Lord & done everything right. I'm sure I could have been better. But nobody's perfect, not even me. I'm probably the most imperfect of all! But at least I'm trying, & I'm trying to get you to try, amen? We may not be the Christian Endeavour Union, but we're the Christian Tryers Union anyhow. We're not trying to get saved, we're just trying to serve the Lord!--So keep it up! Praise God? GBAKY busy for Him, in Jesus' name, amen!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family