LEAVE YOURSELF OPEN!     DO 1934          5/85

         1. IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU DON'T WANT TO DO IN THE STUDY OF BIBLE PROPHECY, IT'S TO GET ANY SET, CONCRETE, DOGMATIC VIEWS & INTERPRETATIONS THAT CANNOT SUFFER CHANGE, that cannot stand modification, that cannot bear the Lord revealing something new to you that you hadn't thought of before, or slightly changing the order of events or giving you a little more light on things that makes them a lot clearer than they were before. A wise man is wiser tomorrow than he was yesterday, so don't get too dogmatic about any of these interpretations.

         2. WE'RE GETTING INTO SUCH DETAILS NOW THAT NOBODY CAN GET DOGMATIC! Even if you think you can support your views by actual explicit Scriptures & even if you've had a revelation directly from the Lord, you'd better always give Him room to clarify or modify things as time goes on. The better you know the Scriptures the more chance your interpretations have of being accurate & generally accepted by people who really know the Bible. As the Apostle says, "That no prophecy (should be) of any private interpretation." (2Pet.1:20)--The very thing on which the Scofield Bible & a lot of other Bible Prophecy students have based their interpretations: Perfectly private revelations, only theirs & nobody else's, different from the prophetic interpretation of Christians for hundreds of years previously. If there's anything you don't want to do, it's to get as dogmatic as they are, even in what you & I believe, to where the Lord can't change your mind & can't show you something a little clearer than you saw it before, even show you that you were wrong!

         3. THE THINGS ON WHICH WE HAVE SOMETIMES CHANGED POSITION HAVE BEEN ON THINGS WHICH I WAS TAUGHT BEFORE by previous teachers & doctrinaires & preachers, the generally accepted theories of my particular denomination or my kind of denominations & what they generally believed in, what I'd always heard.--Even though I couldn't prove or even support it by the Word. The Lord had to show me it was wrong.

         4. WELL, IF I HAD NOT BEEN OPEN TO CHANGE & REVELATION DIRECTLY FROM GOD, YOU WOULDN'T BE HERE! So you'd better thank God that He was able to change my mind, & thank the Lord that He was able to turn me around in some cases & start me in exactly the opposite way!

         5. I'D CERTAINLY LOTS RATHER CHANGE WHEN GOD SHOWS ME SOMETHING & BE RIGHT, THAN THROUGH PRIDE & ARROGANCE & INFLATED EGO & FEAR OF EMBARRASSMENT REFUSE TO CHANGE & REFUSE TO BE CHANGED BY GOD HIMSELF in the matter of some point of doctrine or some point of prophetic interpretation of some kind or other. I would rather suffer the blow to my ego & the embarrassment of my pride & be right, than stiffen my resistance against anything new & close my mind like most Christians & churches, who say, "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts!"

         6. NOW YOU HAD BETTER REMEMBER THAT AS YOU STUDY BIBLE PROPHECY! Because as we get closer to the End & we need to know exactly what is happening & exactly what is going to happen so we can be prepared for it, you'd better be ready to change your mind about any set doctrines which we've had. Because the closer you get to the End, the clearer God's going to make it to you & the better you're going to see it & the more easily you're going to be able to interpret the various mysteries of God's prophecies.

         7. IF THERE WAS EVER A TIME THAT YOU HAD BETTER BE OPEN TO CHANGE, IT IS RIGHT NOW!--Because if there was ever a time when these things are going to start happening, it's now! Then you'll know, won't you? So if you want to learn anything, if you want to be open to revelation & for God to translate or interpret anything to you, you'd better leave your mind open & not close it on the things that you have already learned, refusing to change just because you held that view for a good many years, or because you were taught that before, or even because you heard it from me before!

         8. MANY OF THE INTERPRETATIONS THAT I HAVE GIVEN YOU OF BIBLE PROPHECY & EVENTS ETC., MUCH OF IT HAS BEEN BUILT ON LOGICAL DEDUCTION what I felt that the Lord had showed to me, which in a few cases I may not have gotten completely clear, but which usually turn out to be right. The basic principles that I have taught you have been generally accepted by the church for centuries, & you can count on them because Scripture after Scripture after Scripture confirms them, & event after event after event confirms them until you can say you know that's the Truth.

         9. LET ME TELL YOU RIGHT NOW, THE THINGS THAT YOU READ IN THIS BIBLE, THEY ARE VERY NECESSARILY SO! And if the meaning is clear & literal & obvious so that you don't even have to interpret it, then accept it exactly for what it says! Don't try to twist it or interpret it or make it mean something else than what it says! If it's at all reasonable & believable that it means exactly what it says, then that's what it means! It's only when you're reading these cryptic words & the mysterious code that's so often used in Bible Prophecy that you really need help, you really need divine inspiration.

         10. THERE ARE GOING TO BE PEOPLE WHO CRITICISE OUR SHAPE OF THE HOLY CITY! I'm sure there are already. There are going to be those who criticise the Crystal Sea surrounding it & say, "That's not in the Bible!" No, but I saw it in one vision & that's the way it was! I had never thought of such a thing before, but it was beautiful, that beautiful golden City in that gorgeous crystal blue ball coming through space!--Marvellous! Now that's where I can say I know because I have seen it! When I talk about the Heavenly City, the few little places I did visit & the few things I saw, I can say I know it was that way because I saw it!

         11. SO I CAN SAY I KNOW!--AND IF YOU BELIEVE ME & BELIEVE IN ME, YOU CAN SAY YOU KNOW! But you don't have to. Some people just go by the lawbook alone, & if it's not in the Bible they don't believe it. And there are a lot of Christians like that, there are politicians like that, there are just normal human beings like that. They'd rather you just go away & shut up than try to tell them something new that they never thought of before or they didn't believe before or that sounds wrong to them.

         12. LET ME TELL YOU, IF YOU'RE NOT OPEN-MINDED & OPEN-HEARTED, WILLING TO RECEIVE NEW TRUTHS, NEW INTERPRETATIONS & NEW IDEAS, THIS IS NOT THE DAY FOR YOU! Because things are happening too fast & changing too fast & we're learning so fast, all kinds of new things. As science even says, man has learned more things & discovered more things in the past hundred years than in the past thousands! That's a fact!

         13. REMEMBER WHAT I'VE OFTEN TOLD YOU ABOUT HOW THE PROPHETS SEE THE FUTURE? It's often like looking at a range of mountains. We used to drive out in Arizona, & in the haze of the distance, about all you could see was the skyline & what looked like one range of mountains. As you kept driving closer & closer all you could see was the range in front & you thought that was it, but when you got to the top of the mountain, some of these mountains you thought were the same range were another 20 or 30 miles away!
         14. THE PROPHETS SOMETIMES SEE THINGS LIKE THAT FROM A DISTANCE, THOUSANDS OF YEARS AWAY, & IT ALL LOOKS LIKE ONE EVENT TO THEM. It all looks like one time, one period, one thing, one event. But now through our Bible studies & in these Last Days we've gotten up closer & we can see that there are so many days to this event & so many days to that, so many days to this other & we begin to count out the days & separate the periods. We have to even do the same with some of our own interpretations of the future which are not always clearly defined or separated but we see more clearly as we get closer to the actual events.

         15. THINGS & EVENTS ARE CHANGING SO FAST, SIGNS OF THE TIMES ARE HAPPENING SO FAST! You'd better look out about being so set in your ways & so set in your interpretations that when it actually happens you say, "No, go away, I don't want to believe it, I don't want to see it, because it proves that something is true that I never saw before." Or "I've had this doctrine, this little set idea for years, Daddy told me this, so I can't believe anything different!"

         16. WELL, I HAVE ALWAYS TRIED TO TELL YOU THE DIFFERENCE, HAVEN'T I? I've said, "That's my opinion, you don't have to believe it. I can't necessarily prove it by the Bible, but that's what I believe!" Well, in other cases I can say I know because I've seen it, or I know God said so-&-so because I've heard it! That's the advantage a Prophet has, he knows because he's heard & seen. But you have quite a distinct advantage over a lot of other people too, because you know the Prophet & you know he's honest, that he's telling you the Truth, & that if he found out he was wrong he'd change it.

         17. BUT MOST OF ALL, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT ALL THOSE PROPHECIES GOD GAVE ME IN THOSE EARLY DAYS WERE TRUE WHEN WE WERE JUST A HANDFUL OF LITTLE NOBODIES?--When He gave those amazing prophecies about all the marvellous things we were going to do, thousands of us spreading Worldwide into many countries!--it happened! How about all these other prophecies, how do you know they're true? Now you can believe them, it's not hard for me to believe them now, I've seen it happen! But I'll tell you, it took a lot of faith & sometimes I was even scared to tell'm when I first got'm!

         18. SOME OF THOSE WHO'VE LIVED WITH ME KNOW THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF LITTLE THINGS THAT GOD HAS SHOWN ME & warned us of & told us to do or not to do. We obeyed even though it looked ridiculous, though I had to risk making a fool of myself to even tell them about certain things. But whatever God said would happen or would not happen came true! Thank God that they had the faith to believe what I told them! I thank God that I had the faith to believe what God showed me, & sometimes it was hard to tell them, but I told them anyhow.

         19. LIKE THAT TIME IN PORTUGAL WHEN WE WERE ALL PACKED & READY FOR THE TAXI TO COME PICK US UP & TAKE US TO THE AIRPORT TO GO TO URUGUAY, OF ALL PLACES! But the Lord said, "You need to go to the New World, the Lands of the Rising Sun!" (Tongues:) Hallelujah! TYJ! PTL! "Hear ye the Words of David thy Father & believe ye Me!"--Jesus! TYJ! PTL! It's no credit to me! In fact, I argued with the Lord, I fought with the Lord about it, because I would look like an absolute fool to go to Peter the next morning & tell him to quick cancel the taxi!

         20. BUT SOMETIMES WHEN IT IS AN EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE & EMERGENCY & TOTALLY CONTRARY TO EVERY VISIBLE SIGN OR NATURAL EXPECTATION & God has to absolutely turn you clear around & send you the other direction, he has to do it supernaturally, miraculously & extraordinarily! He has got to change your mind at a moment's notice if necessary. And let me tell you, you had better be open to that kind of change or you can go far afield & be very wrong!

         21. YOU HAD BETTER LEAVE YOUR MIND OPEN, BELOVED, TO WHATEVER GOD TELLS YOU TO DO & WHATEVER HE WANTS YOU TO DO, even if it seems contrary to all reason & expectation. As I say, normally, ordinarily, it's something that is reasonable & logical & just plain common sense, wisdom, but sometimes God acts completely contrary to natural expectation. It's such an unusual circumstance that He has got to change your mind in a hurry & change your direction in a hurry & you've got to obey just like a little child. When you say, "Why?" He just says, "Because I said so!" He doesn't have time to explain.

         22. LET ME TELL YOU, IF YOU'RE NOT OPEN TO CHANGE YOU'LL NEVER GET ANYWHERE! If you're not open to change you'll never make any progress. If you're not open to change you'll certainly never be a revolutionary, because that's what revolution's all about!

         23. WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW AS WE STUDY THIS WORD OF GOD IS TO KNOW THE THINGS THAT ARE UNCHANGEABLE like God & Jesus His Son & His Salvation & His precious Holy Spirit & His Word & His Creation & all the things we know are absolutes & are static, unchangeable, non-variable facts & figures!

         24. LET'S KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE THINGS WHICH CAN BE CHANGED & THE THINGS WHICH CANNOT BE CHANGED, WHICH ARE ESTABLISHED FACTS, proven by the Scripture that are sound foundation for interpretation of Bible Prophecy. There are certain basic fundamentals of our concept of Bible Prophecy & its interpretation, right?--Which we say we know because it says so. It says so in plain black & white words clearly, not once but many times, again & again, if not in the same words, described in other words.

         25. YOU HAVE TO KNOW THOSE FIRST BEFORE YOU CAN KNOW WHAT MIGHT BE CHANGED OR COULD POSSIBLY BE CHANGED like some of our theories & our personal opinions & private interpretations which may not always turn out to be exactly the way we originally thought, but the Bible is necessarily so & what it says about coming events is necessarily so.

         26. WHAT MAJOR EVENTS OF THE FUTURE DO YOU KNOW ARE GOING TO HAPPEN, which you don't have to theorise, guess at, guesstimate or anything? These are unchangeable facts: That we are living in the Last Days & we know this by the Signs of the Times! We know the Antichrist is to rise & that the Covenant will be made, the Temple rebuilt, the Covenant broken, daily sacrifice stopped, the Abomination of Desolation stand in the Holy Place, then Great Tribulation for 1260 days.--The Mark of the Beast, Persecution, the Rapture, the Marriage Supper, the Wrath of God, the Battle of Armageddon, Millennium, the Battle of Gog & Magog, the Great White Throne judgement & the New Heaven & the New Earth!

         27. THESE ARE THINGS YOU KNOW BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS SO CLEARLY, not once but many times, again & again! These are solid stones of faith built on the living Cornerstone, Jesus Christ & His Word, our Foundation. Praise God? There can't be any difference of opinion or any other kind of interpretation. Well, there are amongst some of these church dummies, the same dummies who think sex is evil! But there is Scripture after Scripture to prove all these facts.

         28. THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT ARE KNOWN QUANTITIES IN THE EQUATION. How do we find the unknown quantity in an equation? Since we do know some of the quantities, we can find the unknown quantity by simple mathematic deduction. In the same way we can draw logical conclusions about certain unknown quantities in Bible prophecy.

         29. FOR EXAMPLE, THE BIBLE SAYS THAT WE WILL RULE & REIGN OVER PEOPLE IN THE MILLENNIUM. But who are these unsaved natural Earth people in their natural Earth bodies? Well, we know they aren't the raptured Christians because we'll be the rulers. We know they aren't the Antichrist's people because they will all have been slaughtered. So who are they? The only people who could fit in this equation are those unsaved people who refused to take the Mark of the Beast & who fight the Antichrist & survive the Tribulation & the Wrath of God to live on into the Millennium.

         30. SO SINCE YOU TAKE AWAY THE SAVED WHO ARE RAPTURED & the Mark-of-the-Beast people who are destroyed, you only have one group of people left & that's the Anti-Antichrists. They aren't destroyed because they don't have the Mark of the Beast, & they aren't raptured because they aren't saved. So they must be the ones whom we rule over in the Millennium.

         31. IN THE STUDY OF BIBLE PROPHECY, DON'T BECOME AN EXTREMIST! Don't become an extremist one way or the other: Extremely conservative & totally unchangeable, or don't go to the opposite extreme where you're changing your doctrine & your interpretation every day! Try to hit a good median, a flexible middle of the road.

         32. WHEN IT COMES TO BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION, DON'T BE TOO DOGMATIC ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE NOT VERY CLEAR & ARE NOT EXACT. LEAVE YOURSELF OPEN! That's what the Lord showed me about Revelation! I had to lay my mind open, discard all my theories, all my previous teachings & everything I'd heard & taught & read.
         33. DON'T BE SO DOGMATIC YOU CAN'T CHANGE! Don't open your Bible & say, "It's this way, it's gotta be this way, that's what I read before!" I said, "Lord, I just want You to let me read this Book this morning like I never read it before & not have any dogmas & dogmatic opinions & set ideas about it. What do You want to show me from this Book? What can I see in this Book I haven't seen before?"

         34. I SPENT MY LIFE COMPARING SCRIPTURE WITH SCRIPTURE & teacher with teacher & writer with writer & preacher with preacher & Bible with Bible & footnotes with footnotes & theories & all the rest, but I never got the explanation to Revelation until I just threw all my former notions away & said, "Lord, You show me! What does Revelation really mean?" And then it was so clear & so consecutive & so beautiful, it was marvellous!

         35. I'M TRYING TO GET YOU TO DIG OUT SOME OF THIS FOR YOURSELF, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? I want you to learn how to find things & dig up treasures new & old in God's Word, to learn how to mine the jewels! I want you to learn, I want you to find out how to do it, how to study. Just pray real hard, "Now Lord, why can't You reveal to me what You revealed to Dad?"--Okay? PTL! GBY! It's quite interesting & it's thrilling & it makes not only the prophecy come to life, but it makes the present really come to life! It's thrilling when you know that that is what is happening right now & that's it, it's already here!

         36. THE FUTURE IS HERE! PRAISE GOD! That's why the Lord warned us the other night, "Hurry up, you're going too slow, you're not going to get done if you keep on going at this slow rate. You've got to go faster!"

         37. THANK YOU LORD FOR THY WORD! THANK YOU JESUS FOR THE NEW TRUTHS!--Yet they are old Truths & have been there all the time, but sometimes we just don't see'm. Help these folks to open their minds & hearts as they read & really pray that You'll show them what I'm talking about so they can learn themselves to understand Thy Word & trust & expect Thy Holy Spirit to interpret it to them & open their minds & show them great Truths!--That I'm not the only one, Lord, that can dig these things out & be shown these things.

         38. YOU ARE THEIR GOD TOO, LORD! YOU ARE THEIR LORD ALSO! You're their Revelator also & You can reveal to them just as much as You can to me! Help them, Lord!--Because one of these days I'm going to be gone, Lord, & they're going to have to figure it out & recognise it when it happens. Help them Lord!--In Jesus' name! We're trying to make them real Bible students that really learn from You, Jesus, & learn to be open to Thy Holy Spirit to show them & even change them if necessary. PTL! GBY!--ILY!--Please ask the Lord to help you to know the difference between the things that are unchangeable & those that are not!--GBAKY open to changes!


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family