THE MAKING OF A MAN!--1941 Wars & Lessons! 1/84--Grandmother Turns Down Aimee's Offer & We Struggle! DO 1719
1. (TO MARIA:) HAVE YOU EATEN YET? I HOPE YOU'RE GETTING SOMETHING TO EAT, HONEY, YOU'RE GETTING DOWN TO SKIN & BONES! Some of you don't have that problem, but for years I had that problem, & after you read my Diary you'll understand why. I was just reading the 1941 Diary, "The War Year", & '41 was a tough year! (See No. 1716.) Now you'll understand why I weighed less than 120 pounds for most of my youth, if you ever get to read that one. I don't know whether I'm gonna let you have to go through that ordeal with me or not. We've already pubbed for you the years 1933 & '34, which were the only missing years that you hadn't seen before '35.
2. HOW MANY OF YOU READ THE 1935 DIARY OF WHEN I WAS 16 YEARS OF AGE, IN THE BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE? ("Teen Secrets!", No. 1365.) At least you saw it & even if you only read one word you can stick up your hand. One more hand went up then! Well, I wouldn't blame you for not reading it. That sort of thing is not necessarily required reading, although here you're supposed to read it just to help us proofread, if nothing else. When you read how little sleep I got & how many miles I drove & how little I ate, you can understand why I looked so thin & frail at that time!
3. 1941 WAS A TOUGH YEAR, THE YEAR OF THE WAR!--My personal war & war with my Mother & war with the Devil & war with poverty & war with disobedience & war with Hitler & my war with the Army, & you'll read about it when you have a chance, if I give you a chance. I don't know whether I want to drag you through all that suffering & agony or not--it was almost agony to even read it! I think that was really the worst, toughest year of my whole life. I think the Devil was really really on the job, really trying to defeat me & Mother.
4. IT WAS THE HARDEST YEAR I THINK WE EVER SPENT IN EVANGELISTIC WORK, but in some ways one of the greatest & one of the best & one of the top years with some of the best meetings we ever had & some of the worst periods of unemployment we ever had! It was one of my worst romantic years, I don't know how many girls I gave up that year! But God's Word says if you forsake anything, He'll give you back a hundred-fold! PTL!--And it was a real sacrifice too, I'll tell you, I suffered!
5. YOU REALLY APPRECIATE HEALTH IF YOU'VE BEEN SICK, light if you've been lost in the dark, a little money if you've been without it, & you'll read from my Diaries how broke we were! I didn't even have enough money to buy my Mother a birthday present, all I had was five cents so I went out & bought her a birthday card. Sometimes we didn't even have anything to eat ourselves & had to practically beg for our living.
6. THAT '41 DIARY IS A HORROR!--ONE OF THE WORST YEARS OF MY LIFE WHEN WE GOT MORE OUT OF GOD'S WILL BECAUSE MY MOTHER DISOBEYED THE LORD. We left Florida & went to California, & we were supposed to do that. We were supposed to leave the church & go back into evangelistic work out on the field, & when we did, the Lord blessed us hand-over-fist till we worked our way right up to where we were in the second-largest church in Los Angeles, what was then the religious capital of the United States. We held a meeting at the great Los Angeles Evangelistic Center & that was hittin' the big-time in our kind of business, in the Gospel show business, evangelistic work. And we were on the air with some of the biggest stations, 50,000-watt KHJ etc., so that we really became known!
7. WELL, I WASN'T BIG ENOUGH FOR IT, I WASN'T SMART ENOUGH, I COULDN'T SING GOOD ENOUGH. Imagine me, a little amateur who had just learned how to lead the singing, coming out to California where they had all these professional musicians & choirs & orchestras & big singers & big-time stuff & they were used to the best! They must've been chucklin' up their sleeve at me tryin' to get up & lead the singing, or singing solos, & you'll read some of that in that Diary. I was little ham stuff, a real ham, & I really hammed it up!--Sometimes it was pretty rotten ham unless the Lord just took over. But sometimes I think with the help of the Spirit I did a better job than some of their fancy singers.
8. WHEN I TRIED TO BE SOMETHING, THEN I WAS NOBODY, BUT WHEN I JUST REALISED I WAS NOBODY & LET THE LORD DO IT, THE LORD DID IT & MADE ME SOMEBODY! My Mother was a little nobody too until the Lord made her somebody. She was practically a little nobody, unheard of in Los Angeles & California where they had all the greatest preachers in the World & the greatest churches & the biggest Pentecostal works--it was the religious capital of America!
9. THEY ACTUALLY BEGAN HEARING ABOUT US THROUGH SOME OF OUR WORK BACK IN PENNSYLVANIA ON THE RADIO & FROM FRIENDS THERE. Mother became well-known on radio from Pittsburgh & Wheeling, West Virginia. People began to hear about her, & then her book was published & she became famous, & as a result of that, back in Pennsylvania we had no end of meetings. We were always kept busy because she was always popular & always had invitations to hold meetings. She had millions of friends on the radio, thousands of friends face-to-face & more invitations to churches & meetings & revivals & evangelistic campaigns, whatever you want to call them, than we could even keep up with or fill!
10. WELL, SOONER OR LATER IT GOT OUT BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THE TRI-STATE AREA OF PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO & WEST VIRGINIA & THEY BEGAN TO HEAR ABOUT MOTHER CLEAR ACROSS THE COUNTRY! She first hit the big-time in Miami with her big Tabernacle & her own broadcast & all the rest, then we had this publicity back East till even the West began to hear about her & she began to get a few invitations from the great religious State of California. It was then the religious State, can you imagine that? Los Angeles was the religious capital of America! It had more churches, more church people & more different kinds of religion than any other city in the country, & was known as the most Pentecostal city in the U.S.!
11. THAT'S WHERE THE FIRST GREAT PENTECOSTAL OUTPOURING OCCURRED, AT THE AZUSA STREET MISSION, A LITTLE COLOURED METHODIST MISSION IN LOS ANGELES. It was a great outpouring of the Spirit, everybody speaking in tongues, & it swept the nation & the World back in 1908-1909. And Los Angeles became the recognised, religious capital of America & virtually the World as far as true religion was concerned, what they called Pentecostalism in those days, the true spiritual religion with healing & gifts of the Spirit & power & even witnessing. They believed in witnessing in those days, think of that! They even believed in soul-winning, witnessing to your neighbours & friends & passing tracts on the street, trying to win souls! Churches actually believed in that in those days!
12. WELL, IT KIND OF WORKS BOTH WAYS--"WHERE SIN DOTH ABOUND, GRACE DOTH MUCH MORE ABOUND." (Rom.5:20.) But in that case, where grace abounded, the Devil got in & sin did much more abound & it became Sin Capital, Sin City of the World today!--Along with San Francisco where the homos run the government. But why should we call them such a nice little name as "homos", why don't we just say "Sodomites", huh? That's what the Bible calls them! They're trying to get away from the stigma of that bad name--sodomy--using homosexuality, a nice big word that tries to cover up its wickedness.
13. SAN FRANCISCO WAS THE SIN CAPITAL OF CALIFORNIA BACK IN THE DAYS OF THE BARBARY COAST & THE LATE 1880s & '90s--my Mother knew, she used to work there with all the White slaves they brought in etc. They'd give a girl a dose of drugs & practically put her in a house where she was held a prisoner under the influence of drugs for prostitution. It was common. Well, it's still common today, they still do it, but they don't call it White Slavery much any more. They try to get rid of all those bad terms, saying, "There's nothing evil any more, nothing's bad, really, everything's really good in some way", so they try to get rid of all those bad names & bad words such as "Sodomy" & call it "homosexuality" & that sort of thing.
14. SO SAN FRANCISCO AGAIN NOW IS SIN CITY, SIN CAPITAL OF CALIFORNIA WHERE THE HOMOS RUN THE GOVERNMENT!--ALONG WITH LOS ANGELES & HOLLYWOOD! It has such a large Sodomite population that it's becoming like the ancient city of Sodom, & it's going to meet the same fate.--Probably the same way it got it after it became so wicked back in the late 1800s. 1906 was the year of the great earthquake, & boy, they really got it! It almost levelled the town, killed thousands of people & made a mess of the place. They're probably going to get that same thing again--either that or some of those missiles are going to be a direct hit & land in the right place. The World would be a lot better off if they'd have good aim when they hit San Francisco & Los Angeles! Those two cities have polluted the Earth, not only with Sodomy, but with all their filthy movies & all the rest!
15. BUT IN THOSE DAYS LOS ANGELES WAS THE RELIGIOUS CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, OF REAL RELIGION, Pentecostalism, healing, gifts of the Spirit, all the marvellous outpourings of the Spirit. It was a marvellous, wonderful place to be, back in those days after the great outpouring of the Azusa Street Mission in 1909 etc., & it grew like that more & more until it became Aimee's capital also.
16. AIMEE SEMPLE McPHERSON WAS A SMART WOMAN! She saw what was happening & she held some of her greatest campaigns in Los Angeles with a following of thousands & thousands! But then she made the same mistake my Mother made in Miami & the same mistake the disciples almost made on the Mount of Transfiguration when such a great, wonderful spiritual experience happened. When Moses & Elijah vanished the disciples said, "Lord, let's build here three tabernacles!"--They wanted to start building churches right away! (Mt.17:4.)
17. THAT IS THE MISTAKE ALMOST EVERY FAMOUS EVANGELIST I EVER HEARD OF MADE! Paul Rader came to his end when he built the great Rader Tabernacle in Los Angeles. My Mother's great evangelistic ministry almost came to its end when she built the great Miami Tabernacle. Aimee's ministry eventually almost completely petered-out after she built that marvellous, great, gorgeous Temple in Los Angeles--Angelus Temple as it's called--that held 5,000 people! My Mother built her Tabernacle in Miami that held the same number of people & had it packed-out every night like Aimee had hers packed-out in Los Angeles.
18. THERE WAS A DAY WHEN PEOPLE WERE STILL INTERESTED IN RELIGION & GOD & WANTED REALITY!--Before they had radio & television & movies & all this other junk to fill up their minds & when they still knew they needed the Lord, before evolution & all the rest, & they hungered after God. And when they got out of line He sent them a war to make them repent & get back in line again. So after WWI Los Angeles was even more religious, after the nation repented.
19. DO YOU KNOW WHY THEY PASSED THE VOLSTEAD ACT OF PROHIBITION?--It was a part of their penance for their sins that brought on WWI. God's good hard spanking He gave them in WWI made'm realise that drink was bad for the people, so they tried to legislate righteousness--which never works--trying to make people be good. Well, sometimes you do have to make them be good. If you can't persuade them to be good any other way, you've got to make'm be good anyhow. But it didn't work very well & actually caused the rise of the great gangs & the gangsters & the mobsters & illegal liquor & speak-easies & all the rest! Liquor had a bigger booming business under Prohibition than it ever had when it was legal.
20. IT'S A FUNNY THING, WHEN YOU TELL PEOPLE THAT THEY CAN'T DO SOMETHING, THAT'S JUST WHAT THEY WANT TO DO! The unregenerate, the unsaved, the unrighteous, the wicked, what they want to do most of all is wickedness, & when you tell'm they can't do it, then that's what they want to do. Children can get the same way sometimes if you don't watch it. You tell'm, "No!", & boy, then that's what they really want to do! Adam & Eve were told "no" & that's what they wanted to do most of all, what they were forbidden to do. But sometimes you've gotta let'm learn the hard way like the Lord let Adam & Eve learn in the Garden. Well, I didn't intend to get into this history, but when you read my Diary you'll understand. It's not explained there so much because I didn't really realise too much what was going on at the time.
21. SO LOS ANGELES WAS THE RELIGIOUS CAPITAL OF THE WORLD AT THE HEIGHT OF AIMEE'S FAME & HER GREAT ANGELUS TEMPLE--& ABOUT THE SAME TIME MY MOTHER WAS FAMOUS & HAD HER GREAT TABERNACLE IN MIAMI--AND FINALLY CALIFORNIA HEARD ABOUT MY MOTHER. That's where she had started years before & that's where she was healed about 1918. So now she began getting invitations to come hold meetings in California & tell her life story, the marvellous story of her great healing & all the rest. And of course the more meetings we got, the better known we became & the more churches wanted to have us, especially if they figured you could draw a crowd!
22. THAT'S WHAT PREACHERS & CHURCHES ARE MOST INTERESTED IN--PACKIN'M IN! Draw a crowd & get a big offering, that's their main idea, not "go out into the highways & byways & compel them to come in" (Lk.14:23) or witness on the street corner or pass tracts, "litness" as we call it today. The way the church believes in compelling them to come in is to put on a bigger, fancier program than the other guy, have better music & more shows & bigger speakers than the other churches, & then all the crowd will come to you.
23. IN LOS ANGELES THE RELIGIOUS STATISTICIANS FIGURED OUT THAT THERE WAS A GROUP OF ABOUT 5,000 RELIGIOUS PEOPLE WHO DRIFTED AROUND FROM CHURCH TO CHURCH according to who put the biggest ad in the paper, who had the fanciest program, who had the greatest speakers, who had the most music & who had the most movies! Whoever had the most interesting program that Sunday, that's where that crowd would be! So if Angelus Temple had the biggest program, Angelus Temple got the 5,000 & the others were virtually empty. That's how it finally got to be, & that's when we got there.
24. SO THEY WERE TRYING TO HAVE NEW SPEAKERS & GREATER SPEAKERS & GREATER PROGRAMS TO TRY TO ATTRACT THAT BIG CROWD OF DRIFTERS THAT WENT JUST TO HEAR A NEW THING. "The people want to hear a new thing"--I think Paul said something about that on Mars Hill. (Ac.17:21.) People just came out to hear new speakers, new teachers, new doctrines, new philosophies, anything new!
25. IN ANOTHER PLACE IT SAYS, "THE PEOPLE WANT NEW FLESH." (Jude 7.) The word used in the Bible is "strange" flesh, but it had its same meaning then. It means they just want somebody different, more variety, somebody new. They lust after strange flesh, new flesh, somebody new. Well, I like somebody new, I like new people once in awhile, but not just because it's different flesh. I've found the flesh is all the same! They're all made the same way, all have standard equipment & it all works the same way. But variety, they say, is the spice of life & I'm kind of glad we've got a lot of variety around here! Ahem! PTL!
26. THE LORD DIDN'T SEEM TO OBJECT TO IT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT EITHER, THEY HAD LOTS OF WIVES & VARIETY & IT KIND OF MADE A PRETTY GOOD SYSTEM! My Father even used to say when I was young--imagine, he was pretty radical--"It'd be nice to have several wives--one to do the cooking, one to wash the dishes, one to take care of the kids, one to make love to & all this sort of thing!" Well, I'm afraid if the other three didn't get a chance to make love too, they wouldn't be happy! Anyway, that's another subject, not my subject for tonight. You're probably beginning to wonder what is my subject!--Ha!
27. SO WE CAME TO LOS ANGELES & HIT THE BIG-TIME, & after holding many meetings around California, Mother was finally invited to the second largest church, not only in Los Angeles, but in all California, & one of the largest in America! The funny part about it was--& this is really going to shock you--it was a church that my own Grandfather had originally built in the days of his big crowds of 3,000! It could hold 3,000 people, the huge downtown central First Christian Church of Los Angeles built by my own Grandfather. But of course when the Christian Church denomination, Disciples of Christ, cooled off, froze & got solid--good & solid, you know, good solid denomination, nice & frozen--the crowds dwindled & dwindled in this inner city until there was almost nobody left. That was after my Grandfather's day. He drew the crowds, he packed them in, that's why they built such a big church in those days way back before the turn of the century.
28. SO THIS BIG OLD CHURCH BUILDING WAS SITTING THERE USELESS, NO CROWDS, & FINALLY THE DENOMINATION EVEN GAVE IT UP & SOLD IT. One preacher after another tried to fill it, but it was their Nemesis & most of them flopped. Finally a very good evangelist that we had known for years in the past, Floyd B. Johnson, took it over & he was a powerhouse, a Jew! Oh boy, could he tell the Jewish jokes! He was terrific! And of course there're lots of Jews in Los Angeles, he appealed to them too, & he really went over!
29. EVANGELISTS CAN SHOOT THEIR WAD FOR AT LEAST A COUPLE OF YEARS WITHOUT REPEATING THEMSELVES TOO MUCH, TOO MANY OF THE SAME SERMONS, & THEN THE PEOPLE BEGIN TO GET TIRED OF THEM. So then he began to have to hire other evangelists to come, new voices, new people, new speakers to really try to keep it in the big-time & try to fill up that great big barn of a building. He used to pack it out, but when they got tired of him, he started inviting in other speakers to fill it up & it worked for awhile. Aimee did the same thing, she used to pack-out her Angelus Temple herself, 5,000 every night for a long time, but then it began to be only 5,000 on Sunday nights & then even that crowd dwindled down to where I have been there even on a Sunday night when there weren't maybe 500.
30. BUT IN THE DAYS WHEN I WAS ABOUT 22 & MOTHER & I FIRST REALLY MADE IT THERE, WE GOT INVITED TO FLOYD B. JOHNSON'S EVANGELISTIC CENTER, MY GRANDFATHER'S OLD CHURCH, & MOTHER BEGAN TO FILL IT UP!--Somebody new!--New preacher, different, variety, life story & the Lord! I believe it was the Lord, because if there was anything those satiated Pentecostals of Los Angeles needed, it was a revival! They needed reviving in the Spirit & revival of the gifts & revival of genuine spirituality & what it was all about & what it was for!--Not to just drift from church to church & fill up like Gospel gluttons, getting fat in the Spirit, too fat to do anybody else any good!--Not witnessing, not really serving the Lord, just Gospel gluttons!--Gospel-satiated, Gospel-hardened, where it took a new voice to even sort of wake them up so they'd listen.
31. WELL, MOTHER CAME & SHE WAS A GREAT HIT & JOHNSON WAS A GREAT PROMOTER! Boy, I'll tell you, it takes these Jews to be salesmen & he sold her! He sold her on radio, first to the Long Beach station & then got her on the big KHJ 50,000-watt station, & she was going great guns! She was the latest thing in Los Angeles, she was the latest hit! But she hadn't quite hit the top, that was Angelus Temple. Only the greatest of the speakers & the greatest to come to Los Angeles ever got to go to Aimee's Angelus Temple!
32. SO FINALLY AFTER HER GREAT MEETING AT THE EVANGELISTIC CENTER, ANGELUS TEMPLE BEGAN TO SEND OUT FEELERS & REPRESENTATIVES TO HINT THAT THEY MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN HAVING HER. And eventually Mr. Apel, another good Jew, Chairman of Aimee's Board, who used to be a very good friend of ours back in Pennsylvania & had heard Mother on radio back there & knew her ministry then as well, & had also come to hear her at the Evangelistic Center, got so fired-up & wanted Mother to come to Angelus Temple so bad that he finally sold Aimee on the idea.
33. --ALTHOUGH I DON'T IMAGINE AIMEE LIKED THE IDEA TOO MUCH OF PERHAPS HAVING HERSELF COMPARED WITH THIS OTHER WOMAN PREACHER! There's a lot of jealousy in the religious field, believe it or not, & amongst evangelists as to who's the greatest Gospel showman & can draw the greatest crowd. It's like the stars & stardom of the Gospel show business, they've got their stars too.--Still have, especially out in California.
34. SO HERE WAS THIS NEW RISING STAR ON THE GOSPEL HORIZON, & finally sufficiently popular that they thought maybe she could even get a crowd back in Angelus Temple again, get those 5,000 people to leave the other churches & come over there to hear her as well! I'll tell you, I'll never forget that night when we first had various representatives come. They talked with Mother first on the phone & made contact. It was like big business, really, like they were going to make a sale!--Like labour piracy, trying to get a top executive from one firm to the other. It didn't seem to make much impression on Mother though.
35. BUT FINALLY BROTHER APEL CONTACTED US PERSONALLY, AN OLD FRIEND OF OURS FROM BACK IN GOOD OL' PENNSYLVANIA WHERE WE'D HAD ALL THOSE MEETINGS. Other representatives had contacted her but Mother just said, "No, no, no, I don't want to run any kind of comparison with Aimee. Too many women preachers in one place, that's too hard a competition to try to buck!"--Aimee, who had the biggest church in the World at that time & the greatest following & was World-famous & all that. Mother was just beginning to be nationally famous. So she said, "No, no, no, I don't think it would be good."
36. BUT FINALLY DEAR OLD BROTHER APEL, HE JUST BEGGED HER! He said, "You're just what these people in Los Angeles need! They need to really get revived & back to the old-fashioned religion & the fullness of the Spirit & the gifts & healing & all of these things, really get on-fire for the Lord again, really love the Lord again! Maybe you could even revive Angelus Temple!"--All those "Angelinos", as they called them. So finally he persuaded her. He said, "Aimee wants to meet you!"
37. SO BECAUSE HE WAS AN OLD FRIEND & WE KNEW & LOVED HIM DEARLY, MOTHER LISTENED TO HIM. After these other guys all failed, he phoned & said, "I want to see you, Sister, I want to talk to you!"--And he came & talked & begged her to come. He said, "It's not just because it's the biggest church in town, but we need you, our folks need you, they need your message! Aimee's kind of worn-out here, you know, & gotten to be old-hat & nothing really new any more."--She was getting pretty old too, she'd had her face lifted, cosmetic surgery & all kinds of stuff.
38. SHE'D HAD HER BIG SCANDALS & EVEN THE BIG SCANDALS NO LONGER PACKED THE CHURCH! Some accused her of contrived scandals like a fake kidnapping & all kinds of stuff, but I believe it was genuine. (See No. 953-3.) But not even running off with her singer & shacking up in a little rendezvous up in exclusive Carmel, not even when that got out did that pack Angelus Temple!--Although usually anything like that would really pack'm in, you know, the latest scandal! It especially kind of wore out when she went ahead & married the guy. That was old hat, that was no scandal any more. She almost felt forced to marry him because she'd been living with him already. So she sort of had been going downhill spiritually.
39. SEE, SHE MADE THE SAME MISTAKE MY MOTHER MADE: THE BIG CHURCH! "Oh my! Let's build here three tabernacles! We've had such a great experience, such a great blessing, & we'll get all these crowds, we ought to build a big building for'm!" This has been so ingrained in Christians for the last 2,000 years--they can't imagine a crowd without a building!
40. WELL, WE'RE AN UNUSUAL CHURCH, MAYBE ONE OF THE FIRST ONES SINCE THE EARLY CHURCH TO BE A DENOMINATION WITHOUT A BUILDING, WITHOUT EVEN ONE BUILDING! I don't think we own a building on Earth, although I think some of the Combos have been buying property--watch out! We're scattered all over the World because I didn't build a building & I didn't accumulate you all in one building in order to have a crowd & try to keep you there to keep the building full, but I insisted you go to the uttermost parts of the Earth & get the heathen for your inheritance! PTL? "Go into all the World & preach the Gospel to every creature"--I believe it! (Mk.16:15)
41. I THOUGHT THAT'S WHAT I OUGHT TO DO, & WHEN THE CHURCHES WOULDN'T LET ME DO IT, I GOT YOU TO DO IT! It's a fact, my own denomination turned me down & wouldn't let me be a missionary, said I was sick, had too many children, & besides, I was too old to finish my education. So I figured, "Well, I guess there's only one thing I can do--try to get other people to do it"--& here you are! Praise God!--Over 20,000 of you!
42. IF I HAD FOUND THE RIGHT WOMAN IN THOSE EARLY DAYS, MAYBE THIS WOULD'VE NEVER HAPPENED! I'd have gotten married & settled down in churchianity & had my own church & made peace with my denomination--as I tried to do! But I was a little too rough & radical & they would have none of me & finally threw me out, because I still believed in preaching the Truth whether they liked it or not!
43. THAT IS NO WAY FOR A PASTOR TO ACT IF YOU WANT TO STAY A PASTOR & KEEP YOUR PASTORATE!--DON'T EVER TELL PEOPLE THE TRUTH! Just shake hands & give'm a nice frozen smile & that limp wet-fish handshake & say, "Oh, Sister so-&-so, how are you today?" (Turns head & makes a face!)--Thinking all kinds of horrible things about them to yourself! And always smile & say all your nice little pleasant pulpit platitudes & don't offend anybody & don't get anybody upset & certainly don't tell them the truth about themselves or then they will get upset!
44. I'D BEEN USED TO BEING IN EVANGELISTIC WORK, & THE TRUTH IS TOLERATED FROM EVANGELISTS. After all, they're only going to have you one night or maybe a week or two & they can take it that long & laugh it off: "Well, she found me out, she's hitting the nail on the head, but thank God we won't have to listen to her much longer! She's telling the truth about me, I know it, but I'm going to sit here & smile & laugh as though it's not me, it's the other guy."--That listener generosity! "Oh, that's good for Sister So-&-so! Oh boy, that was just the thing to have said to Brother So-&-so!"--And pass it all around to everybody else instead of taking it to heart themselves. So they'll put up with an evangelist for a short time, it used to be about four-to-six weeks before they got weary, the average length of an evangelistic or revival campaign in a church when you could pack'm in for weeks & weeks. Poor Uldine Utley cracked up when they made her carry on for 11 weeks in Chicago!
45. IN THE DAYS BEFORE TELEVISION, RADIO, MOVIES & ALL THESE THINGS, PEOPLE HAD NO PLACE ELSE TO GO, except the legitimate stage, theatre, ballet & opera, & not everybody wanted to do that & not every city had good performances, so preachers & churches still attracted crowds. In some places the church was the best entertainment in town & they packed'm in, like in the days of my Grandfather. In fact, they had some travelling road shows that packed them in too like Chautauqua, which was nothing but travelling educational entertainment. They went to towns that had nothing important or big & no opera & no theatre & they could pack'm into their big tents. (Trouble with recorder.) Lord, we rebuke the Enemy in Jesus' name! He doesn't want these people or anybody to get this Message!--But it's the Truth, it's history & one of the reasons the World is like it is today.
46. YOU'RE GETTING A LITTLE OF THE BACKGROUND OF WHY THE WORLD'S IN SUCH A MESS, BECAUSE THE CHURCH GOT IN SUCH A MESS & Christians got in such a mess when they forgot what they were here for & how they were supposed to live & die! They ceased evangelising the World & just sat around evangelising themselves, sending for evangelists instead of being evangelists! Sending for revivalists instead of being revived!--Just being entertained instead of going out & evangelising the World. And by the time Mother & I hit Los Angeles & I was working with her as a team, that's the state Los Angeles had gotten into, even Aimee's great Temple with all Aimee's great past.
47. SHE WAS A MIGHTY, MIGHTY PREACHER OF THE GOSPEL IN HER DAY, BUT SHE'D GONE DOWNHILL SPIRITUALLY. She'd gone in more for entertainment & drama than for really hitting hard spiritually. Because you can't settle down & become a pastor & have a church building & be popular & keep the people happy in one place all the time! As somebody said, you can keep some of the people happy all of the time & all the people happy some of the time, but you can never keep all the people happy all the time. And that's what happens in a pastorate.
48. THEY FIRST COME & THEY MAKE ALL THE PEOPLE HAPPY FOR A LITTLE WHILE, then if they decide to stay on & pastor, they keep some of the people happy at least. But finally they wear out their welcome & they can't keep anybody happy any more! They have to get a new preacher or build a new building, something else, anything but obey the Lord & go out into all the World & preach the Gospel!
49. I DON'T THINK ANY OF OUR FOLKS HAVE EVER GOTTEN BORED ON THE MISSION FIELD! I don't think they've ever said that life is monotonous on the mission field or on the street corner litnessing or going door-to-door preaching the Gospel! There's always something new, always something exciting, it's always a little bit dangerous, always challenging, thrilling & really rewarding! But the Church people just stay in one place all the time, the same old buildings, hear the same old stuff, the same old people. So they've got to have new people come, they've got to have new kinds of entertainment.
50. THEY'VE GOT TO HAVE ALL KINDS OF NEW STUFF TO KEEP THEM INTERESTED & KEEP'M HAPPY, BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL DISOBEYING THE LORD, none of them going out except maybe one or two from a church. I mean, it got to where there were a lot of churches that had no missionaries. Think of that! It used to be that almost every church supported some missionary or missionaries, but they even lost the missionary vision. They didn't even support them any more, much less have any of their members go!
51. YOUNG FOLKS GOING OFF TO BIBLE COLLEGE WAS JUST A LARK!--Just a place where they could raise more Hell & get away from their parents & church & the preacher. Bible Colleges got to be reformatories for all these bad little preacher's kids who got out from under their parents' control & went wild! So the churches are a mess & they were in that mess when we came to Los Angeles.
52. (HEARS A CHILD CRYING:) WHEN A CHILD'S UNHAPPY IT'S A GOOD IDEA, SORT OF LIKE IN CHURCH, TO CARRY THEM OUT UNTIL YOU CAN MAKE THEM HAPPY, because I can't bear to hear a child cry without doing something about it. PTL?--Either get'm happy quick or take'm where you can. PTL? Otherwise everybody is disturbed, it's natural, because a child's cry is the most distracting sound in the World; it was meant to be, so you'd get interested. But it distracts your attention from something else that you may need to hear, part of the story.
53. SO DEAR BROTHER APEL SAID, "MAYBE YOU CAN HELP OUR CHURCH, MAYBE YOU CAN HELP THOSE POOR PEOPLE! Maybe you can revive them, maybe you can get'm back on the right track. Aimee's kind of gone haywire, she's just socialising with all the Hollywood stars & bigwigs & living rich." People said she was on sleeping pills or drugs & all kinds of stories were circulating about her. And she had had a few husbands & a few scandals & a few escapades & it did look like she was going downhill spiritually, & certainly the church was & her people were. So Brother Apel, who was really a real Christian, had taken over the Chairmanship of the Board there to try & do something with the church. He was a Jew, a good businessman, & you've got to have good businessmen to run churches, to keep them afloat financially & all that.
54. HE FIGURED MOTHER MIGHT BE ABLE TO SAVE ANGELUS TEMPLE, & MAYBE SHE WOULD'VE DONE IT SOME GOOD. She might've done them some good for a little while, at least. You go to a church & get'm revived & get'm back on the track for maybe a few more months before they peter-out again, because they never will get out & do what they're supposed to do. So it might have done the church a little good, it might have done some of them good, it might have gotten some of them back to the Lord & maybe even some of them into the Lord's service, who knows? I believe she could've done a lot of good there.
55. IF ANYTHING COULD'VE EVER HELPED THEM AT ALL, I'M SURE MOTHER COULD HAVE! In those days she really socked away & let the chips fall where they may! She didn't care who it was, she socked it to'm! She gave them the Message of God whether they liked it or not, take it or leave it, so I think she could've done that town & that leading church of the city a lot of good--maybe even Aimee--& Apel thought so too.
56. SO FINALLY HE SAID, "SISTER, YOU'VE JUST GOT TO GIVE IT A CHANCE, PLEASE GIVE IT A CHANCE! I want to prove to you that our people really want you, badly want you!--Not just me, but the whole Board wants you!" She said, "Well, maybe you do, but I don't think Aimee would want me. I would be like some kind of competition, another woman preacher, she's apt to get jealous. Are you sure this invitation is coming from Aimee & that Aimee wants me?" He said, "I'll prove it! Aimee wants you to come to dinner & to tell you herself if you don't believe it!"
57. WELL, WHERE AIMEE INVITED US TO DINNER WAS NOT EXACTLY HER HOUSE!--Although she lived in a five-story mansion next door to the Temple, a beautiful place, & eventually moved out to Hollywood, Beverly Hills or someplace out there, into a bigger mansion. Well, I can't blame her too much for not wanting to sit right on top of the bomb in the midst of all the action. But where do you suppose we went to dinner?--In the biggest, fanciest, most exclusive restaurant in all Hollywood, of which I can't even remember the name now, but it was like some kind of an Arab palace or something!--Scully's!
58. I'D NEVER BEEN TO A PLACE LIKE THAT IN MY LIFE!--And my Mother had even taken me to the dining room of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City when that was supposed to be the swankiest place in New York. Of course we could only afford to go there for breakfast & that cost about what two or three meals anyplace else would cost, but she thought I ought to see how the other half lives. It's not actually the other half, it's about the other 5%! That's the truth. In Britain alone, 5% of the people own 90% of the wealth!
59. THAT'S WHY DEMOCRACY DOESN'T WORK, IT'S REALLY NOT DEMOCRATIC. What's the use of having the vote if you haven't got enough to eat? So it doesn't matter how many governments they change, the government always favours the rich, & besides, they want to be rich & that's why they want to be in power & then they get rich. Even the new revolutionary government gets rich & it's just another bunch of apples on top of the same pile, that's all!
60. NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU SHAKE UP THE APPLE BARREL, THERE'RE ALWAYS SOME ON TOP, EVEN IN RUSSIA. I mean, they turned it completely upside-down in Russia, but they're back to the same old thing--big villas & mansions & the elite & rich people & powerful people & what amounts to a Czar. What's the difference? It's the same thing all over again, maybe even worse, because at least the Czar was a Christian & they had churches & formal religion of some kind. Well, that's another subject.
61. SO MOTHER FINALLY SAID, "ALL RIGHT, IF AIMEE WILL TELL ME HERSELF SHE WANTS ME TO COME, MAYBE I'LL BELIEVE IT." So here we went to this sort of an Arab sheik's palace. You can imagine poor little Mother & me, we were not very much. She'd lost the Tabernacle & we had gotten pretty poor by comparison, although we hit the big time in Pennsylvania with the Lehmans & finally here in Los Angeles. But here was this huge banquet with all the official board & Mr. Apel & all the bigwigs & her son & all these people around this big huge U-shaped table in the banquet room of this fancy place. We walked in & I felt like, "Ugh! I don't even know how to behave in a place like this!--All this fancy silver & china & fancy food!" I was so scared to death I could hardly eat.
62. AS YOU'LL READ, I WAS HAVING A LOT OF STOMACH TROUBLE & HEART TROUBLE & GIRL TROUBLE & DRAFT BOARD TROUBLE & ALL KINDS OF TROUBLE IN THOSE DAYS! '41, that was the worst year of my life, I really think so. In fact, it's so bad I almost don't want you to read it, but then I saw so many good lessons in it for you that I thought it might be helpful to know what I went through, & that in spite of all that, here we are! The Lord got the victory anyhow! That was one of the low spots of our life, & I'm telling you now why, because Mother got so out of God's will.
63. WELL, AIMEE WAS A BORN SHOW WOMAN--DRAMA WAS HER MEAT! She wrote operas, good ones too, with symphony orchestras, & she produced them on her stage there in Angelus Temple, tremendous plays & operas, beautiful stuff, all Gospel, Bible, good stuff!--Best entertainment in town! Even the movie stars would come out to Angelus Temple to see Aimee's dramatics & some of them got saved. After all, it takes all kinds & that was her ministry. That's what got to be her ministry--dramatics--to appeal to a dramatic people in the great dramatic movie colony that was developing there. And they came, & people like Sol Hopi & a lot of other people got saved that never went to church otherwise. There was big entertainment at Angelus Temple, a big show, big opera or big concert, so they went!--There was music, a symphony orchestra, she had everything!
64. I MEAN, THERE WAS NEVER ANYTHING ANY CHURCH IN THIS WORLD EVER HAD THAT AIMEE DIDN'T HAVE--EXCEPT IT WAS LOSING THE SPIRIT, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO HAVE! So Apel said, "Maybe you can bring the Spirit back like the good ol' days when we used to pack'm in & Aimee was really just preaching the Gospel & not all this other stuff."--Kind of like what my Mother got into after her first visit to California before all this--when she first saw Aimee & her drama she went back to Miami & tried to pull the same thing. Until one day little Junior Haas, about Techi's age, wearily sat down dressed in a shepherd's costume & said, "Oh, give me the good ol' Gospel!" He was so tired of rehearsals & plays!
65. SEE, WHEN THE CROWDS BEGAN TO DWINDLE IN MIAMI, MOTHER DID THE SAME THING, SHE BEGAN TO TRY TO HAVE DRAMAS & ANYTHING TO TRY TO GET A CROWD. But see, she overstayed her time there. Once the great crowds were gone, her ministry was finished, she'd reaped the harvest & she should've moved on. Instead of that she built the Tabernacle & tried to keep the crowd, & it dwindled down to two or three hundred. Pitiful!--Till I & the Lord convinced her through losing the Tabernacle & losing this church & losing that--& finally having the Jews actually drive us out of town--I finally persuaded her that, "You need to go back on the evangelistic road. Evangelism is your calling, your ministry, that's where you belong!"
66. SO SHE ACCEPTED THIS INVITATION FROM LEHMAN UP IN WHEELING ON THE RADIO &--BOOM--SHE EXPLODED AGAIN! She began to pack'm in again & reach millions instead of just a handful, reaching new people! And she got her book published for the first time, her life story, which she'd never written in all those years! After telling it everywhere, she'd never sat down long enough to write it, think of it!
67. I NEVER COULD PREACH, I WAS A FAILURE AS A PASTOR & AS AN EVANGELIST. I NEVER COULD'VE PACKED'M IN--I PACKED THEM OUT! I drove'm away!--Until my first wife told me, "Honey, you could write a book on 'How to Lose Friends & Antagonise People!'"--Ha! She was right, because it wasn't popular to tell the truth to those church audiences. It doesn't make you popular. It didn't draw a crowd, it lost the crowd, even lost the church!
68. SO WE SAT THERE AT THE BANQUET TABLE, EVERYBODY CHATTING GAILY & EVERYTHING WAS NOISY LIKE CHRISTIANS AFTER CHURCH, GAB, GAB, GAB! It was the first time some of them had been together for a long time, all the bigshots & the official Board even meeting with the people, the choir leaders & all the officials of the whole church! There were about 100 people there at this big huge banquet in this fancy place.
69. AND SUDDENLY SOMEBODY SAID, "SHHH! SHE'S COMING!"--THE QUEEN HAD ARRIVED! And I mean she was a queen, & she was dressed like a queen! She had on a coronet & a high collar like you've seen Queen Elizabeth wear in some of the movies, & this great flowing robe with a long train. I mean, you never saw anything so fancy in your life! No bride ever wore anything more dramatic & queenly! She was queen! And she was a queen in her own right, her church & all the rest, she was a queen! She ruled the religious capital of the World, Los Angeles!
70. AND TRAILING ALONG BEHIND HER WERE TWO GIRLS CARRYING HER LONG TRAIN!--THAT REALLY INTERESTED ME!--The first time I'd ever seen girls in see-through harem pants, naked up to the crotch with this thin material gathered at the ankles. Of course, I thought that was naughty in those days & my Mother thought it was downright wicked! Aimee didn't just arrive, she didn't just come in, she swept in in grand fashion with the grand entr of a movie star! She did! I've told you all the good things about Aimee before, haven't I? Well, I have to tell you the bad things now. She had really gotten kind of off the track & off the beam, going in so much for dramatics to try to appeal to the bigshots & the stars that she had gone overboard with the dramatics & trying to pack'm in, staying in one place instead of staying on the evangelistic road.
71. SHE WAS AN EVANGELIST, & WHILE SHE WAS STILL IN EVANGELISM ON THE EVANGELISTIC ROAD SHE WAS JUST A SENSATION EVERYWHERE SHE WENT, SHE PACKED THEM IN!--Because she preached & she laid it on the line & she let the chips fall where they may. She gave them what they needed, & some people actually like to come out & hear what they need for a little while. They know they need it & they don't mind listening to it as long as they don't have to listen to it from their preacher or the pastor or listen to it all the time. But they never change, they never really repent. Oh, they'll come to the altar & weep a little bit & cry & say they're sorry, tell the Lord, "Well, I'm going to do right & I'll do better now & I won't just spend all my time making money & I'll give a little more to the church & I'll try to maybe support the missions more & do a little bit better & live a little bit more for the Lord & give a little more to the Lord."--Everything but themselves, of course.
72. SO AIMEE HAD REALLY GOTTEN OFF THE TRACK TRYING TO KEEP HER CHURCH, TRYING TO KEEP A CROWD, TRYING TO KEEP HER POPULARITY & trying to settle down in the lovely Southern California climate & weather--like my Mother had fallen in love with Miami & its lovely Southern climate. Watch out that you don't come South or East just for the climate or just because you like the warm weather & the sunshine! It's going to take more than that to keep you here & to make you useful here. Praise God? In the meantime, if you do the right thing & obey the Lord & you witness & you do what you're supposed to do & you do God's work & put Him & His Kingdom first, He'll add all these other things unto you & let you enjoy them. (Mt.6:33.)
73. LOOK WHAT HE'S DONE FOR YOU HERE! You of all people, of all people of our whole Family in the whole World were chosen to be here at the most important nerve center of all to help us in getting out the Word & in ministering to the entire Family all over the World. You chose the most sacrificial kind of living, in a Selah colony, but look what He's given you in exchange--everything!
74. SO AIMEE SWEPT IN IN GRANDEUR LIKE ANY QUEEN & LOOKING LIKE A QUEEN & ESCORTED LIKE A QUEEN WITH HER HAREM GIRLS IN HAREM PANTIES TRAILING ALONG BEHIND carrying her train, & body guards & all kinds of stuff! She had to come in the main entrance to make a grand entrance, not on our side of the table, then she swept around the other leg of the "U" right up to the head & they pulled out the throne & seated her. I sometimes feel guilty for sitting on this "throne", but anyhow, it's comfortable. Thank you. Just because it looks like a throne doesn't mean I'm trying to be a king. I never expected to be anything, as you'll find out when you read some of these Diaries. If nothing else, it'll do you good to see how horrible I was & how nothing I was, how terrible! It ought to encourage you to realise how I went through the same things you go through & even worse.
75. SO SHE SAT AT THE HEAD OF THE TABLE IN GRANDEUR, THIS OLD LADY. She was, I think, about 50 at this time, but looked older than my Mother! You don't have to have a face-lift & all that until you get pretty old. Some people said she died from an overdose, but I think she probably just died of old age & hard work, still trying to keep all that going even at her age. She'd even come down & preach once in awhile, & that's one time when she'd pack'm in again, 'cause everybody wanted to hear Aimee!
76. ANGELUS TEMPLE WAS A TOURIST SIGHT-SEEING SPOT OF LOS ANGELES, & if you happened to hit there when Aimee was going to preach, then they packed'm in! And she could still preach! She was dramatic, a huge woman, masculine & strong as an ox or a horse! She had a voice like a foghorn, I'll tell you, & she really could preach! And when she would actually come down & preach, the people would come out. But all this drama stuff kind of wore off & her preaching became rare.
77. SO SHE SAT THERE WITH THAT BIG FROZEN GRIN & NODDED TO HER COURTIERS & HER COURT & EVERYBODY SAT THERE & OOHED & AAHED! It kind of makes me ashamed the way you sit there sometimes, hanging on my every word & every look & every little favour. GBY! I love you!--But don't worship me. I'm nothing. Wait till you read some of these Diaries & you'll know it. I think you got one today. Well, those were two of the best years, those were two of the good years, & they were bad enough! '33 & '34 were my first two Diaries & you've already read '35, when I was 16. I was, in some ways, improving then, getting a little more spiritual. In '33 & '34 I was just a high school student, but I think you're going to see that I was a rather unusual high school student & a little better than the average & a little more spiritual. You can see that I was beginning to grow & beginning to put the Lord first.
78. BUT SEE, IT WASN'T UNTIL I WAS 19 THAT I RECEIVED THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, & THAT WAS IN 1940. See, that was just before we left the church in Miami & hit the evangelistic road & the Lord began to really bless. I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit first in our church in Miami & then Mother finally got persuaded by a lot of things to leave town & hit the road & the Lord began to bless her ministry again, & we finally got almost to Angelus Temple.
79. SO HERE WAS THIS CROWD OF COURTIERS OOHING & AAHING & SALAAMING TO THE QUEEN, & OH BOY, IT REALLY RUBBED ME THE WRONG WAY! I didn't like it! Mother didn't like it either, but for a different reason. Finally we were summoned to the throne to come up & meet Aimee personally--we didn't exactly bow or curtsy but almost, you know--& she reached across the table to shake hands & said a nice little word to us. "Ah, Sister, I've heard so many good things about you! We really want you to come to our church" etc.--finally confirming what Mr. Apel said: "I want to prove Aimee really wants you to come, she's going to invite you personally!" But Mother couldn't believe it, she thought Aimee would be jealous.
80. WELL, I'M INCLINED TO AGREE WITH MOTHER, I THINK AIMEE WAS JEALOUS, & I THINK SHE WAS ESPECIALLY JEALOUS OF MOTHER'S POPULARITY SPIRITUALLY. Because Mother was at this time about where Aimee had been when she was on the road & God was blessing her ministry. So I think she was a little jealous, you know, kind of like King Saul with little David. Here little David was about to kill Goliath, Angelus Temple, & go in there & really have a great victory. So Mother was probably right, Aimee probably was afraid of the popularity Mother had & that she would maybe pack'm in & that she might get jealous. Mother was afraid she was already jealous because Apel & the Board were all begging her to have Mother come to her church.
81. BUT MOTHER SORT OF HAD THE OPPOSITE REACTION & I THINK IT WAS NOTHING IN THE WORLD BUT PRIDE--BECAUSE AIMEE WAS JEALOUS SHE DIDN'T WANT TO GO. But I begged & argued & pled with Mother & said, "Mother, but look what an opportunity it is! You could do those people good!" I'd listened to Brother Apel talk about how much they needed her & needed her ministry & need-ed a revival, needed a revival of the gifts & healing & all these things. Aimee didn't have healing meetings any more, she didn't have any of this any more. I mean, you never heard anybody speak in tongues there except in a prayer meeting. You never heard messages, you never saw the gifts of the Spirit, nothing any more like it used to be in her meetings. Her meetings used to be red-hot, on-fire, real old-fashioned holy-roller meetings! But everything had frozen & gotten down to nice solid permanent churchianity.
82. SO I SAID, "MOTHER, I BELIEVE WITH BROTHER APEL THAT YOU COULD DO THAT CHURCH A LOT OF GOOD! And after all, it's the only invitation we have right now & it's the Lord's open door! I believe it's the Lord, I believe He wants you to go there! I believe we should go there & God knows we need it! We need the job, we need the work, to put it bluntly, we even need the money!"--Because if you were the evangelist that went to Aimee's in those days, you got paid $1000 a week! That was like movie star pay in those days!--$1000 a week to the big-time speakers! I said, "Mother, I believe the Lord wants you to go there!" It might have been a little bit of my Jewish covetousness, but I could remember some of the poor days & the old days & some of the hard times & the skinny, slim times & I thought it was a great opportunity in every way I could think of!
83. BUT ALL MOTHER COULD SEE WAS AIMEE! I said, "Forget Aimee! She's had her day & she's old-hat! They're tired of her & they want to hear somebody new & you've got just what they need! You've got it! I agree with Brother Apel, you've got it, & I believe it's the Lord!" And if we had gone to Angelus Temple, as they say in the big-time, we would have "had it made" in California, the hardest nut in the USA to crack! Because they'd had everything, heard everything, seen everybody & it was difficult to even get meetings in California, because they had the best!
84. THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ALLIANCE ALONE, ONE LITTLE RINKY-DINK DENOMINATION, HAD 600 PASTORS STANDING IN LINE FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA APPOINTMENTS! The District Superintendent of California, Brother Van Clief Yagi, had 600 applications on hand! When I went to ask him for a church when I finally broke up with Mother, he said, "Dave, do you know that we've got some of our best pastors of big churches in other parts of the country who want to come out here & be Alliance pastors in this beautiful sunny Southern California? I've got 600-&-some applications from Alliance pastors all over the country who want Southern California churches! No way, no chance, you'll never get a church in Southern California, never, because everybody wants to come to Southern California, everybody wants to ride the wave out here in Los Angeles, everybody wants to enjoy the sunshine & the sea" & blah, blah!
85. THAT WAS CONSIDERED THE ULTIMATE, YOU'D REACHED THE PEAK IF YOU WERE AN ALLIANCE PASTOR IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA! They had one of their biggest churches out there & so did the Assemblies of God. Evangelistic Temple, the Mother Church of the Assemblies of God was in Los Angeles, & many a great preacher would come out there & build a great tabernacle. Paul Rader built a huge tabernacle & petered-out there etc.
86. SO I SAID TO MOTHER, "THEY NEED YOU, WE NEED THEM, WE NEED A MEETING! NOW COME ON MOTHER, WE'VE GOT TO TAKE THIS MEETING!" No way! She was stubborn & adamant, she would not. She said, "I am not going to run competition to Aimee! She is the queen, the star, the supreme, & nobody is ever going to look good next to her." I said, "Oh Mother, you could run circles around her! You've got something she hasn't even got, at least not any more. You have the Spirit, the anointing, the gifts! God's blessing your testimony, your ministry." But it didn't do any good. I was up against a stone wall arguing with her to take that meeting. She just wouldn't take it!
87. WELL, WE DIDN'T TELL THEM THAT NIGHT, OF COURSE, WE TRIED TO BE NICE & SMILE & BE THANKFUL FOR A NICE DINNER, ALTHOUGH I COULD HARDLY EAT! Finally Aimee stood & everybody stood up with the queen--of course they all stood up when she came in too--& she made her grand exit while everybody stood & watched & applauded & honoured etc. We were led over to her again by Brother Apel as she was leaving--he was trying to warm things up between Mother & Aimee, get them more acquainted--but the more Mother saw of it, the less she liked it. The more I saw of it, the less I liked it too, but I sure liked the idea of having a meeting at Angelus Temple!
88. HE LED US OVER THERE TO SHAKE HANDS WITH AIMEE, & IN DUE OBEISANCE WE SHOOK HANDS & DID EVERYTHING BUT BOW OR CURTSY OR SALAAM! And she swept out with her two harem girls holding up the corners of this long train that was about as wide & about as long as this long table, with these two girls in see-through harem costumes, one at each corner at the back carrying it. I mean, you could see their bras & panties underneath, real harem outfits made out of this long thin stuff like chiffon or something gathered at the ankles. Do they still call them harem pants? Do they still wear them sometimes? (Fam: Yes.) How about that? Well, it shows you the Arabs were not so dumb after all, it's a smart style! It sure showed the girls off nicely & I had a "hard" time trying not to look at them, because of course I thought that was a sin in those days. They should see me now! They should see my girls now! PTL! You do better than the harem panties, I'll tell you! (Looking at all his topless beauties!)
89. I'M TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO YOU WHAT HAPPENED THAT I DON'T HAVE TIME TO EXPLAIN IN THAT DIARY. I want you to just read the Diary because I think it'll do you good to know how bad I was & how low I was & to what depths we sank spiritually in discouragement. When Mother turned down the meeting at Angelus Temple she might as well have slapped Aimee Semple McPherson in the face, because that was just unheard of! No evangelist turned down a meeting at the top, where you not only could have the greatest church in Los Angeles, the religious capital of the World, but you could have the greatest crowds & make the most money!
90. BROTHER APEL ACTUALLY CAME TO MY MOTHER & WEPT, TRYING TO BEG HER TO TAKE THAT MEETING! I can remember that in our little house there in Los Angeles. He said, "Oh Sister, if you could just come!" He pled & he begged & he wept, & I practically wept too, although I didn't enter discussions then much because I was just a little nobody. But afterward, boy, I sure let Mother have it! After all, I was her teammate, I travelled with her, what she did affected me too, & what she didn't do really affected me too! I think even my Father agreed with me at that time, for the most practical reasons--he didn't want to have to support us! There we could have a good meeting & make good money & be a big help financially.
91. WELL, IT WOULD HAVE MADE US IN THE GOSPEL SHOW BUSINESS WORLD! We would have reached the top & become famous, much more nationally-famous, perhaps even more World-famous, & Mother would have had no end of meetings from then on. She would have had invitations galore, more than she could ever fill!--Not just in Los Angeles or California, but across the nation & probably in other countries around the World! Because Aimee had gone over & made tours of Europe & Canada & all kinds of places, held meetings all over. It would've probably really made Mother popular!
92. MOTHER HAD BEEN THROUGH THE SAME EXPERIENCE & KNEW WHAT IT WAS LIKE. She could've understood Aimee & what had happened to Aimee with her big church & all of that, trying to stay & be a pastor, because she had gone through that & pulled out of it, thank God, & learned her lesson! She might have saved Aimee's life, she might've saved Aimee's ministry, she might've at least saved her people. But through what I really thought was pure pride she wouldn't go. She said, "I don't want to make Aimee jealous & I don't want to be compared to Aimee, it's too many women preachers in one place" & blah blah! I thought she had the most stupid, idiotic, weak arguments, although they seemed to be important to her.
93. BUT IT WAS PRIDE!--SHE WAS AFRAID THAT SHE MIGHT COMPARE UNFAVOURABLY WITH AIMEE, THE GREAT STAR, & THAT SHE MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO HANDLE IT. I mean, Los Angeles had had everything. She had been quite a success at Johnson's Evangelistic Center & pulled in the crowds, so she said, "But I've already held one meeting here, they've all heard me. They've heard me on radio, how do I know I could even get a crowd there? It might be very embarrassing, not only for me but for Aimee & for the church, & maybe I'll be a flop!" So she turned down the meeting!
94. DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AS A RESULT?--YOU CAN READ IT. WE GOT A HANDFUL OF LITTLE ONE-HORSE, ONE-STOP, ONE-NIGHT STANDS, a little rinky-dink church here or there, & we were virtually without work for the next three months of the Summer, with almost no meetings. Los Angeles & Southern California churches could get any kind of preachers, preachers galore, the biggest & the best, they didn't have to ask for little folks who were not in the big-time. So she almost made it, but when she turned down that meeting Mother just about killed herself in Los Angeles & California & it almost put an end to her ministry! She just petered-down to almost nothing from then on, going to nothing but little tiny churches, little Alliance Churches, Churches in homes with crowds of only one or two dozen!
95. WELL, SHE HAD A MINISTRY & I WENT WITH HER, BUT THAT WAS THE END OF HER GLORY & THE HEIGHT OF HER MINISTRY. I believe if she had obeyed the Lord & gone to Angelus Temple, had yielded to poor Brother Apel's plea & his tears & strong prayers & my begging & all the rest, she might have reached greater heights than ever before, because she would've become more well-known & her ministry would've reached further. They even had their own radio station at Angelus Temple & they were great on publishing books. They'd have probably published more of her books & she'd have become better-known & had a larger, greater ministry. She would have reached more people & done more good, but all through pride she turned down that meeting, & that almost killed her public, popular ministry.
96. AS I SAY, FROM THEN ON WE WENT DOWN, DOWN, DOWN THE LINE TO LITTLE TINY CHURCHES, UNTIL FINALLY, BECAUSE SHE COULDN'T GET ANY MEETINGS SHE REJOINED THE ALLIANCE, COMPROMISED & WENT BACK INTO HER DENOMINATION! The Superintendent said, "Well, Sister, you left the Alliance back there in Miami, so no Alliance Church out here is going to have you unless you're Alliance. Now if you'll rejoin, I'll see that you get meetings, but only in Alliance churches. You shouldn't go to any more of these Pentecostal churches or fanatical churches, you've got to stick with us! You rejoin us & we'll give you meetings, we'll give you churches!"--Yes!--Little one-horse outfits, a beggar's dozen, some of them! Well, some were sweet, cute little churches with precious people, really "churches in the homes" a lot of them, although they had a few big ones.
97. WELL, THOSE ARE THE ONLY KIND OF MEETINGS HE GOT HER, JUST IN THESE LITTLE TINY RINKY-DINK ALLIANCE CHURCHES. They never let her into any of the bigger Alliance Churches of California, never, because word got out: "Shhh! Shhh! Don't touch her, she's too hot! She's Pentecostal! She speaks in tongues & has interpretations & gifts of healing & all that sort of fanaticism, she's Pentecostal!" But she wasn't Pentecostal! The Pentecostals wouldn't have anything to do with her either most of the time because she didn't believe tongues was the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That was contrary to their doctrine, so she'd killed herself with a lot of Pentecostal Churches, unless they were kind of independent. So there were only a few poor little tiny Alliance Churches she went to that were struggling along, & the Lord probably let her go there to encourage those poor young brethren, new preachers, new pastors & give them a good sample & a good dose to get'm started.
98. BUT THAT'S WHAT OUR MINISTRY WENT DOWN TO--FROM THE GREAT TABERNACLE OF 5,000 PEOPLE EVERY NIGHT THAT I COULD REMEMBER WHEN I WAS TECHI'S AGE, TO VIRTUALLY NOTHING! And you will read the sad story in that 1941 Diary of how we went down, down, till finally the Lord spanked my Mother so hard He gave her the final blow of all!--He stripped her of me, took me away when I landed in the Army! And that nearly killed her, because I was the last thing she was hanging onto! Everybody had deserted her. Even her own husband, my Father had deserted her, I was the only one that stuck by her, & finally I left her for the Army!
99. I REALLY WANTED TO GO INTO THE ARMY! Things had gotten so bad on the field & on the road, even going back East to try to get a sort of a revival of ourselves & her ministry back with Lehman again, it just didn't seem to go over & she was hittin' bottom! And I was hittin' bottom with her because I was her helper, her slave, & it was very discouraging. I virtually left the Ministry over it. I figured if God's blessing was no longer on my Mother's ministry, I might as well leave it!
100. BESIDES, I WAS SICK & DISGUSTED WITH HER GOING BACK INTO THE ALLIANCE! I was furious with the Alliance because of the way they had treated her, like mud, & even after she rejoined in California they still treated her like mud! They wiped their feet on her there & insulted her & wouldn't have her in the best churches, not even the better churches. "Oh, she's a woman preacher, & besides, she's Pentecostal" blah, blah!--Stuck up their nose at her! So the Lord didn't bless it, the Lord didn't bless what she did, she failed there, although she'd gone back on the road.
101. WELL, SHE WENT BACK ON THE ROAD, THANK THE LORD, & SHE DID GET SOME MORE MEETINGS & WE DID HAVE A MINISTRY FOR AWHILE, but as you know if you've read the story, we finally went down to almost nothing until Mother couldn't get any more meetings & didn't have any more calls & I was out of a job! That was my only job, & the only thing I knew was that kind of work. God knows I tried all kinds of other jobs while I was quitting, I did everything, & you've read about some of them. I even tried to go back to college I don't know how many times! I was like Mike trying to get the truck in the garage: "I had it in three times, why didn't you shut the door?" I actually enrolled in at least six different colleges, including UCLA, Westmont College, the Alliance College up North & back in the East, & I finally did get into the University of Arizona for one semester, & that cured me of ever wanting to go back to college!
102. BUT ANYWAY, THAT'S THE STORY & THAT'S HOW MY POOR MOTHER CAME TO HER FATE & MET HER NEMESIS, IN A WAY, BECAUSE SHE TURNED HER BACK ON ONE OF THE GREATEST OPEN DOORS THAT GOD EVER GAVE HER! She could've reached not only all of Los Angeles, but California & perhaps the nation, maybe even other parts of the World if she had taken that great call & that great opportunity, that great open door with such an opportunity of ministry: Radio, publications, everything, as well as the beginning of many other invitations. If she'd taken that she'd have been famous & they would've been begging her for meetings that would've kept us busy from then on & probably would've kept me out of the Army, we'd have been so busy!
103. BUT THE LORD KNEW I WANTED TO GO IN BECAUSE I WAS FED UP & SICK OF THE WHOLE THING! Mother was dwindling down to nothing, getting no meetings, & I was virtually out of work & having a struggle. I was meeting all these pretty girls & couldn't marry them because I was a flat-broke poor travelling evangelist with no education, who wanted to marry me? I could never have supported a woman if I had one--a woman was supporting me!--Which was kind of embarrassing sometimes, especially the older I grew. Some of my relatives told me off about it too: "When are you ever going to get loose from your Mother's apron strings? What kind of a man are you to go the rest of your life being supported by some other woman?"--They talked about my own Mother that way! They tried to get me to go back to college, & that's why I tried to go several times.
104. WELL, NOTHING EVER WORKED FROM THEN ON, NOTHING, UNTIL FINALLY I GOT LOOSE FROM MOTHER, BECAUSE THE LORD NO LONGER REALLY BLESSED HER MINISTRY. Well, what little she did & what little she could do, the Lord tried to bless it the best He could, but it was His second, third & tenth best & not the best any more, sad to say. Well, she was also getting old. In this Diary she gets her first pair of glasses at 57! She was getting old, & it was hard to be on the road & she wanted to settle down.
105. MY FATHER NOW HAD A GOOD JOB & INVITED HER TO MOVE BACK IN WITH HIM. He had left her when she was in the Lord's work, & he'd gone into secular business. Now he had a secular job as Comptroller of Westmont College, virtual treasurer & cashier etc. So he had a good job & a house & invited her to move in with him & said he'd take care of her. But he almost as good as told her, "You're going to have to get rid of Dave because I can't support both of you. After all, he's a grown man now, it's time he got out & got his own job & shifted for himself. We'll help him go to college, but nothing else." So that was the end.
106. IT'S A LONG STORY, BUT YOU KNOW THE REST OF IT & YOU CAN READ IT IN THE DIARY. I just kind of had to give you that explanation tonight. I've been debating after reading this Diary whether I'd even publish it or give it to you, because it is so discouraging, so monotonous & so boring--all the little things & the details I go through day after day after day--but once in awhile you'll find a jewel. Once in awhile you'll get a lesson, once in awhile you'll see what's really happening.
107. SO I LANDED IN THE ARMY & THE LORD NOT ONLY TOOK HER SON, BUT HE ALMOST TOOK MY LIFE!--ALL REALLY A PART OF MOTHER'S PUNISHMENT! It was harder on her than it was on me, because I was her pride & joy & her life & the only one that stuck by her & the only one that helped to make her ministry possible. So when I landed in the Army she made a beeline straight back to my Father & moved in with him & that was it!--No more ministry, no more road, no more evangelism. She said, "I'm just going to retire. If the Alliance gives me a few little meetings here, all right, but otherwise I'm just going to retire."--She quit!
108. WHEN I QUIT HER, SHE QUIT, BUT I FELT LIKE SHE'D QUIT THE LORD & THAT'S WHY I WANTED TO QUIT HER & I WANTED TO STRIKE OUT ON MY OWN & TRY TO DO SOMETHING MYSELF. Well, I didn't make it, & I didn't make it for several years yet, as you know. Even after I got married we still travelled with Mother & she still had little meetings & little churches & we still had children.--Until that third child, that did it, dear Ho! She said she was through when we had the first one, Deb, but we went on in meetings anyhow & left them behind. Then when we had the second one, Aaron, "Ugh! I've had it!" she said, "No more kids, no more wife, we're finished! No churches will have us with a big crowd like that & a family" blah, blah!
109. LATER ON SHE FOUND OUT THE KIDS WERE THE BIGGEST ASSET WE HAD, BUT THAT WAS TOO LATE, WE HAD OUR OWN MINISTRY BY THEN. PTL! But we did go to a few meetings with her just to make her happy, & we needed some of them too. But she finally fired me, virtually threw me out! I thought we were buying this trailer for my Mother & us to travel on the road, but I found out she was buying it for her & Dad, my Father, & we were supposed to get out & go! So that's what happened.
110. WELL, IT WAS THE MAKING OF A MAN! I had to get out & I was forced to go back to college--I didn't even want to but I had to--living on $25 a week, which was a lot of money in those days, in a way, but barely supported us, living in somebody else's borrowed little 14-foot trailer with a family of a wife & three children! It was pretty rough, hand-to-mouth & living by faith, but it was the making of things, because it was from there we went to build a church in Arizona & had all those experiences & Branham prophesied over me & it was from there I got out of the church entirely, broke loose, & joined Fred Jordan. He was another rebel, he'd broken with the churches & was really preaching the Truth, the facts.
111. THAT'S HOW I GOT STARTED ON THE RIGHT TRACK, FOLKS, GIVE FRED CREDIT FOR THAT! King Saul got David started & what he preached was the Truth--he preached missionary work & witnessing & litnessing & with very little education, that anybody can get out & win souls if you just try, anybody can witness if you just get out & try, & anybody can go to the mission field by faith! If you'll just obey the Lord & go, God'll take care of you! I'm doing all the things Fred Jordan taught in those days & a whole lot more. I've just carried it on like King David did from Saul to even greater lengths.
112. POOR FRED, I FEEL SORRY FOR HIM SOMETIMES, BECAUSE I'M DOING TODAY THE THINGS HE DREAMED OF DOING, THE THINGS HE WANTED TO DO & THE THINGS HE WANTED TO TEACH PEOPLE TO DO. But he never really broke enough with the church. He broke personally with the church, but too many of his people were associated with churches, supported by churches, missionaries supported by them, so that when he had his problems & scandals etc., they broke with him & he was left with nothing but a television show.
113. I CAME ALONG & RESCUED HIM THEN & PUT HIS SHOW ON NATIONALLY ALL OVER THE COUNTRY--300 TV stations, 1100 radio stations--& helped to kind of give him something to live for, revived his ministry. If he couldn't have a School or missionary work any more, at least he could have all these stations & reach millions of people, & the Lord used it. He used him the best he could in the shape he was in, until finally I had learned enough that the Lord was able to use me to carry on his ministry, far beyond his wildest dreams! TTL! HAL! TYJ!
114. SO GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE!--All of them, my Grandparents & my dear Mother & Father were part of my education & training to lead me as far as we've gotten, & even those other preachers & Fred Jordan & all the rest of them, until finally I was ready. It took almost 50 years for the Lord to prepare me!--49 years, seven times seven years, until the Lord figured I was ready, & then really began my real ministry!--YOU!
115. I HAD BEEN FROM PILLAR-TO-POST & HELD ALMOST EVERY KIND OF JOB YOU CAN THINK OF, & been in every kind of situation & condition & everything else, wife & four children living in little trailers & all kinds of poverty!--Twenty years of my life spent in campers & trailers, believe it or not! PTL! So I made a bunch of Gypsies out of all of you! GBAKY Gospel Gypsies for Jesus till He comes!--Amen! ILY! Thanks for your patience in learning all this, & I hope it'll do you some good!--At least it'll let you know from whence we came & be thankful you didn't have to go through all that!--I did it for you, like Jesus suffered for all of us!--In Jesus' name, amen!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family