GIVE GOD A CHANCE!
DO 2428
5/88
--You Can't Be Afraid of Publicity!
1. (MARIA: THE LEADERSHIP AT THE JAPAN SCHOOL ARE ASKING ABOUT A TV PRODUCER THERE who might be interested in doing a documentary on them. A documentary like that could bring up all kinds of questions.)
2. I'D TELL THEM THE SAME THING I TOLD HO WHEN A TV MAN WANTED TO DO A DOCUMENTARY ON THEM. I said you've got to give them a CHANCE or you could miss some golden opportunity. Of course, in Ho's case, when he found out that the guy was definitely ANTAGONISTIC & was definitely going to try to do some kind of negative thing or expos, then he killed it. But until they SHOW such negative feelings or intents, you have to give them a chance. You may be denying God a chance! God may be trying to get the Message out to all Japan!
3. (MARIA: BUT WHEN YOU KNOW OR YOU'RE PRETTY SURE THAT THAT'S GOING TO BRING UP ALL KINDS OF QUESTIONS, all kinds of investigations & all kinds of identification...) They're riding a wave of popularity right now & good favour, a very favourable wave, & they need to ride it as far as they can & get as much out of it as they can & get as much mileage out of it as possible while they're riding high! That's what we've always done!
4. THE DAYS OF EXPOSURE ALWAYS COME IN THE LONG RUN. After the blessing of the popularity God gives us & the good reaping He gives us as a result of it, then He allows the Devil to rise up and start fighting with persecution to really SIFT the people. It always follows the same pattern. But that doesn't mean you should be like Farmer Brown who was so afraid of everything he didn't have anything! You've gotta give'm a CHANCE! You've gotta sow the seed, you've gotta grow the crops, even if the bugs do get in!
5. (MARIA: YOU MEAN THEY SHOULD ENCOURAGE HIM TO DO A DOCUMENTARY?) By all means, absolutely! Honey, we can't be scared of everything just because we're in a dangerous business! If you don't GO to WAR you don't win any BATTLES! In any man's war you're apt to stand some losses, but if you don't go to war, you don't win ANY battles! War is dangerous business, especially OUR kind of war, SPIRITUAL warfare. You have to take so-called chances. You've gotta give God a chance! Of course this often gives the Devil a chance too! So what?--That's God's way of fighting His war!
6. WELL, WE CANNOT BE AFRAID OF PUBLICITY JUST BECAUSE WE MIGHT GET SOME BAD PUBLICITY! "Great were the companies that published it!"--Psa.68:11. We've had lots of publishers & it wasn't all good, by any means, but at least it got out the Message, & at first it is usually good, their first impressions are almost always the right ones. They have a good impression, God's Spirit sees to that, & they give favourable reports & we receive good publicity at first. And sometimes it lasts quite awhile! It's a lot of favour, gives us a lot of favour with the powers that be & with the public, & as a result lots of people come or go & get saved & we reap a harvest!
7. THIS IS ALMOST GOD'S STANDARD RECIPE FOR REAPING A HARVEST! You've got to get publicity, you've got to get people's attention, you've got to get people to come, you've got to get ahold of people to give them the Message, whether it's individually or publicly or what!--Newspapers, television or whatnot! We've always had that! And nearly always at first, where God really wants to reap a harvest, He keeps them in the dark and ignorant of our past, at least for awhile, until they can get the Message and He gets things across to them & we have published the Gospel to every creature possible!
8. THEREFORE, HOW CAN YOU BE AFRAID OF PUBLICITY, JUST BECAUSE IT MIGHT EVENTUALLY RESULT IN SOMETHING BAD, which it almost always does! God always allows the sifting AFTERWARDS, the bad publicity, resulting in persecution etc.--Which shows we have done the job, we have finished the job, and the Lord allows the Devil to rise up & fight us & oppose us.
9. IF THEY NEVER HEAR ABOUT US & DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT US & NEVER GET THE MESSAGE, THEY'RE NOT RESPONSIBLE! But in witnessing it's just as important to send the WRONG people to HELL as it is to send the RIGHT people to HEAVEN! We're ministers both of reconciliation and condemnation!--John 3:17-21,36; 15:22-24; 2Cor.2:15,16.
10. WE BRING THEM OUT & FORCE THEM TO A DECISION! We force people to a decision to either RECEIVE the Truth or REJECT it, so that God might be justified & just in both saving those who receive & condemning those who reject! But you can't have those reactions from both sides unless you get the MESSAGE publicised, unless you get the Message to BOTH sides! (Maria: So we want as much exposure as possible so we can cover the most people.)--Exactly!
11. AND THE LORD ALWAYS SEES TO IT THAT WE GET THE GOOD SIDE PUBLISHED FIRST TO REACH THE GOOD PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO RECEIVE IT & GET SAVED & like us & all the rest, BEFORE He allows the evil lies to leak out from the Devil's sources, in order to get the BAD people to make the WRONG decision that they might be CONDEMNED!
12. BOTH THE GOOD AND THE EVIL HAVE TO HEAR IT THAT THE GOOD MIGHT BE SAVED & THE EVIL BE DAMNED! That was the main sin of those people of whom the Lord said, "They received NOT the love of the Truth." He said He will send them STRONG DELUSION that they might believe a LIE! So why has He been letting all these strong delusions & lies be published about us? Think about that!--"That they might believe those lies, that they might be DAMNED," He says!--2Th.2:10-12. Because His children & the good people who are going to be saved will NOT believe the lies, they will believe the TRUTH FIRST, & THEN the Enemy will cause his people, our enemies, to believe the LIES that they might be DAMNED, because they received NOT the love of the TRUTH!
13. SO IT'S IMPORTANT THAT BOTH SIDES HEAR THE WORD!--Both the people who get SAVED & the people who reject it & get LOST. And by the time they get the whole story from our enemies, of course it's bad, but then we've finished our job. And the Lord allows persecution to drive us on to new fields. PTL!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family