—By Father David1 May 1979DFO 1000

1. YOU HEARD ABOUT THE GUY WHO SAID, "THEY TOLD ME DON'T WORRY, THINGS COULD BE WORSE. So I quit worrying, & sure enough things got worse!" Well, if you always expect the worst you won't be disappointed. But of course then you'll miss a lot of fun, because according to your expectations be it unto you. It says, "according to your faith be it unto you" (Mt.9:29), & faith is expectation, amen? That's usually the way it goes, TTL!

2. TODAY I CAN SURE CLAIM THE SCRIPTURE‚ "WHEN I AM WEAK, THEN I AM STRONG, for His strength is made perfect in weakness." (2Co.12:9‚10.) Also you can always claim, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be" (Deut.33:25).—So He'll never give you a day that's too much for you, & He'll always give you whatever strength you need for the day. He won't overload you, but sometimes you do if you overdo it. Sometimes we give ourselves a day that we can't take, right? But the days He gives won't overdo you, for "His yoke is easy & His burden is light." (Mt.11:30.)

3. HONEY, I THINK THIS IS ALL BEING RECORDED, so I wouldn't worry about trying to write. Why don't you sit back & relax? It's nice of you to all be so diligent, "a short pencil's better than a long memory," but you might as well sit back & relax & enjoy it & let the tape recorder do the writing for you. I suppose it's on, it usually is!

4. I'M ALWAYS WIRED FOR SOUND!—Even when I'm acting foolish! All my sins are recorded.—There's bound to be a few in there somewhere. It says in the Bible, "In the multitude of words there lacketh not sin" (Prov.10:19), so there must be some. It doesn't mean that they're wrong necessarily‚ sometimes it's a sin just to talk too much! One preacher said he knew I was the Antichrist because I "wore out the saints"!

5. QUITE A FEW NOW THINK I'M THE ANTICHRIST, well maybe not the Antichrist‚ but the False Prophet! They think I'm the False Prophet & Godahfi the Antichrist!—Some of them have got some real screwy ideas about us. …

6. AS MUCH AS THAT GUY IS HATED BY ALMOST EVERYBODY in the World … it's probably only … the mercy of God that's kept him going!—He's had quite a few attempted coups & so on. …

7. … So who knows, maybe he's a secret believer but doesn't dare tell his brethren because that would be the end of him! Sometimes I think maybe even Sadat might be a secret believer. There's one that I'm pretty sure is no secret believer, & that's Begin—he makes no secret of his beliefs! Ha! ...

8. I WAS FEELING FINE THIS MORNING TILL I HAD THE RUNS. When I was a kid everybody just expected to have the runs every Spring. They called it "Spring Cleaning," Spring fever! Didn't you ever hear of that back on the farm any of you guys? It was probably the water & just the general change. The Lord kind of cleans you out & gets you set for a new set of microbes.

9. I DON'T KNOW WHETHER YOU NOTICED HOW CHLORINATED THE WATER WAS the other day. It was really strong! So they're probably having to really doctor it up as the warm weather comes on. Germs like it warm too & they live in the water. But it's amazing how your body can get used to a certain set of bacteria.

10. WE'VE GOTTEN BY HERE WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK THE LOCAL LANGUAGE, except for Sue & Alfred! He speaks all languages! He speaks everything, it doesn't matter what they speak. I think he gets it by osmosis or something! We're not in a country a few days & he's already chattering away! It's one of those gifts of those Capricorns!

11. I WAS JUST DUMBFOUNDED WHEN WE GOT [to an Arabic–speaking country]! I guess Ho had been there about a month before us, & by the time we got there he was just yakking away in Arabic fluently, yak-yak-yakking away with everybody! Ha! It's amazing!—And Faithy too, she was doing pretty good, but mostly Ho.

12. THOSE CAPRICORNS REALLY KNOW HOW TO PICK IT UP! I remember Lucy was like that & she was down there too!—And Sue seems to pick it up too. I don't know why, she's not even a Capricorn. She's one of those forever Pisces.—Others come & go but the Pisces stay on forever! One reason being they're all good secretaries & don't have any children! Well, PTL, thank the Lord some of you have stuck it out pretty well too, in spite of everything. I'm the biggest baby in the bunch‚ so PTL!

13. I HOPE YOU HAD A CHANCE TO HAVE A LITTLE FELLOWSHIP before I came down, getting a little praise before the prayer, or did you have prayer too? Did you have a round of prayer all the way around? He says to "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving & into His courts with praise" (Ps.100:4), & let your requests be made known with thanksgiving. (Ph.4:6.)

14. WHENEVER I HAD A PRAYER MEETING or happened to be in charge of churches, I didn't like them very much. They were so dull & that's the smallest crowd of the week, Wednesday night prayer meeting! They used to say you can tell by the Sunday morning crowd how popular a preacher is. You can tell by the Sunday night crowd how popular the church is. And you can tell by the Wednesday night prayer meeting how popular the Lord is! Think about that.

15. DON'T MOST CHURCHES HAVE THEIR BIGGEST CROWD ON SUNDAY MORNING? Some churches don't even have any crowd on Sunday night, or even any meeting, so apparently the church isn't very popular. I don't know about Catholic churches, that's an analysis of the Protestant churches. The Catholic priests might not be very popular‚ I guess it's the Mass that's popular. They make sure that they get to Mass so they can be sure that they can last for Heaven at least another week!

16. I ALMOST DECIDED CATHOLICISM WAS ALMOST THE SAME AS HOLINESS: You've got to keep coming & confessing & attending church & all that in order to stay saved. You have no sure guarantee of staying saved unless you keep all the rules, just like the Holiness people. They're believers in eternal insecurity. Thank God we don't have to worry!—Once saved‚ always saved!

17. EVER SINCE WHEN I WAS A YOUNG CHRISTIAN & READ JOHN 3:36, THAT ENDED ALL MY WORRIES! I didn't worry about it any more. "He that hath the son hath everlasting life." That was it! I couldn't figure out why I hadn't seen that before & why somebody hadn't told me before, but there it was! I knew I had Jesus, I knew He didn't keep popping in & out of my heart! He was there all the time. He said, "Lo, I'll be with you always, even unto the end of the World!" (Mt.28:20.) He says He'll never leave or forsake us (Heb.13:5) & "him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." (Jn.6:37).

18. SO HOW CAN YOU BE SAVED & UNSAVED, SAVED & UNSAVED 40–11 times a day like the poor Holiness people & I guess the Catholics too?—Never sure! I never found a Catholic yet who knew if he was saved. Maybe you have, I don't know. But I used to go door-to-door witnessing to people, & of course most of my life I lived in the Southern border States like California, Texas & Florida‚ where there were oodles of Spanish-speaking Catholics, & I never yet found one who knew he was saved! I never found one who was sure he was going to go to Heaven. They said‚

19. "WELL, I WON'T KNOW UNTIL I'M DEAD & He balances up & measures all the good deeds against the bad deeds. If the good ones outweigh the bad ones, well then maybe I'll make it. I've got to wait till I see St. Peter at the Golden Gate & he checks the records to see if my reservation is good or if it's been canceled!"

20. THE POOR CATHOLICS & HOLINESS PEOPLE REALLY LIVE IN ETERNAL INSECURITY! They never know when or where or how or if or what! It's enough to make a nervous wreck out of you, & a lot of them wind up nervous wrecks! I know Dr. Ironside wrote some good books on that if you ever want to read them.

21. HE STARTED OUT HOLINESS & FINALLY WOUND UP A NERVOUS WRECK with TB & everything because he just couldn't stay good enough! He couldn't stay saved all the time! When he was in the TB Sanitarium he got time to read the Word & found out it was just by grace! So he wrote a book called‚ Grace Plus Faith Plus Nothing! Well, you don't have to read his books, just read Ephesians 2:8,9. I thought it was Ephesians, once in a while I'm right, how about that!

22. I WAS NEVER ANY EXPERT ON REFERENCES‚ that's why I leave all the references to Path! She's getting to be my lawyer now. A lawyer is somebody who knows the law‚ & the laws & the Scripture. Aaron used to be my lawyer before he died.

23. I'VE HEARD SCRIPTURE ALL MY LIFE & MEMORISED IT. I could just sit here & spout Scripture all day, but very seldom can I tell you exactly where it is. I seldom ever give you the house number, but usually I can give you the street or the neighbourhood, but not the exact addresses. You might have to get on the block and look around a bit. So that's what I do with Path. I don't mean I get on her block & look around a bit, but ... sometimes I get onto her! Hallelujah!

24. IT'S GOOD TO KNOW & MEMORIZE YOUR REFERENCES along with everything else, & that's one thing I tried to teach the Family. One of the reasons I did it is because they failed to teach me that way, & I knew you needed it. …

25. IT'S GOOD TO QUOTE THE SCRIPTURE, BUT IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT'S AT & the guy you're witnessing to says, "Is that in the Bible? Where's it at?" and you don't know‚ then how does he know whether you even know the Scripture? It's a good thing to be able to read verses to them out of the Bible. It's even better to even show it to them & let them read it.

26. I THOUGHT THAT WAS GREAT HOW THEY GAVE ... A LITTLE BIBLE STUDY on Ezekiel 38 & 39! Stephen & them were reading ..., & [the person they were teaching] said, "Let me see that!" He took one of those 3X5 Bibles, but how can anybody read it without a microscope? Those may be fine for your use & they're great to have along, but how in the World are you ever going to use them on somebody you're witnessing to if you want them to read it? How are they never going to be able to read it‚ it's microscopic!

27. I NEARLY RUINED MY EYES ONE MONTH TRYING TO READ THOSE 3x5 LESSONS dear Josh & Aaron got out. It was a great idea, those were the first we ever got in print, believe it or not, God bless'm! Those were virtually the first MO letters & we actually got something in print! But oh boy, what a mess! They made more mistakes in those things, it was horrible!

28. THEY WANTED TO KNOW IF THEY COULD PRINT 'EM UP & I said, "Well, I better check it out first."—And that's when I found where it said, "I was God!" & a few other horrible mistakes. They just left the "t" off the "I", that's all! I was talking about the Lord working & I said, "It was God"! But they forgot the "t" & it said, "I was God!" Ha!

29. WELL A LOT OF OUR ENEMIES HAVE ACCUSED ME OF THINKING I WAS GOD! Often the newspapers say, "He thinks he's God," or "He thinks he's Jesus."—Such a lie! Thank God I'm not God or Jesus, I've got enough problems of my own! Well anyway, where was I? Ephesians 2:8,9, "For by grace are ye saved through faith," thank the Lord! "That not of yourselves, it is a gift of God," amen? "Not of works lest any man should boast."

30. "THEY THAT BELIEVE HAVE ENTERED INTO REST." (He.4:3.)You may have to work hard all day, most of us do. But even though we're all busy, at least we can have rest & peace of mind in our hearts spiritually. We don't have to worry about whether we're good enough or if we've been too bad or if we're going to make it or not, every day concerned about whether we're going to be saved or not. I wonder what they think Jesus died for anyhow? If you could save yourself‚ the Lord wouldn't have had to die.

31. SO THANK THE LORD WE'RE SAVED & WE KNOW IT! And of course, if you really are you show it too. It doesn't mean you're going to just be like everybody else in the rest of the World‚ you'll be different. You're a new creature in Christ Jesus—"old things are passed away, behold all things are become new"! (2Cor.5:17.) There's a change, a real change. You're almost as different as Techi here, born all brand new!

32. SHE'S A BRAND NEW MODEL, THINK OF THAT, WITH ALL THE ESSENTIAL EQUIPMENT & accessories‚ TTL! No optionals that I know of, it's all there. Thank the Lord we don't have to add on any more‚ they come fully equipped‚ most of 'em. Mother used to say, "Don't worry about the girl's looks, son‚ it's all pretty standard equipment!" PTL! Thank God! Well you all seem pretty happy, thank the Lord!

33. WE CAN REST IN THE LORD. Even if you're weary in body, weak in the physical, you can be strong in the Spirit, PTL? I feel better already just looking at you, all my loves, thank the Lord! Just sorry I can't see everybody around the World, & some of our loved ones have to be absent, but I trust they're with us in Spirit today. (Now I do!: Via Video!)

34. THAT'S ONE NICE THING I LIKE TO THINK ABOUT TODAY, that all around the world our Family is celebrating with fasting & prayer on the first day of the month. We're told "forget the things that are behind, look forward to the things that are before". You don't need to pray for last month, it's all over, it's done, we need to pray for this month. But we're not to fret for tomorrow either, in other words‚ don't worry about tomorrow. Sometimes you may have to plan for tomorrow‚ but you're to trust the Lord. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Phil.3:13; Mt.6:34.)

35. YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL, HONEY, YOU ALWAYS STAY PRETTY! Some women are going to be forever beautiful, they're just the kind that always stay beautiful. So, praise the Lord, thank the Lord! I see lots of older women downtown & I tell Maria‚ "Isn't she beautiful?"

36. YOU KNOW A WOMAN CAN STILL HAVE BEAUTY & CHARM NO MATTER WHAT AGE! I've seen women in their 60s who were still sexy, still charming. I wrote a thing on femininity once but we probably never got it typed up, did we? This beautiful girl in this very brief bikini walked by‚ she had everything—but femininity. She didn't walk by, she lumbered by, horrible posture & walked like a man, ugh!

37. BEAUTY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH AGE. Let me cheer you up, you can be a beautiful woman all your life. Feminine, sexy, charming, all the things that make a woman, it doesn't matter how old you are. I'm not looking at any of you older girls because you're older, I'm just looking at the girls! That's the truth. I told Maria, if she lives to be 90 or to 1993 or whatever the gypsy meant, she'll always be beautiful‚ charming, feminine & sexy no matter what! I've heard about these old folks homes where the old 70–year-olds & 80-year-olds are climbing in bed with each other & still having fun!

38. SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT GETTING OLD!—LOOK AT ME! Well, maybe that would worry you, I don't know! Well not today, although looking at you makes me feel young. But I do feel young in spirit, thank the Lord, most of the time. Sometimes I look in the mirror & wonder, "Who's that?" & I'm surprised that I don't look like I always did! But I really don't feel much different.

39. IN FACT, I THINK I'M IN BETTER HEALTH & been in better health in the last 10 years of the Family than I have been nearly all my life! So, thank the Lord‚ He's blessed us. Most of you won't have to worry about old age anyhow because you're not going to live that long. Not because of ill health or accident or even persecution, but just because I think the Lord's going to come too soon to give you a chance to get old.

40. PEOPLE ALWAYS ACCUSE ME OF PREDICTING THINGS THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN, but what they ought to do is really read the so-called prediction & see how many qualifications & how many if's, and's & but's there are in it. I say‚ "Providing I interpreted it right," & "Providing I got it right," "Providing this is the right interpretation & meaning, then probably so & so, & possibly it looks like it might."—I've attached so many conditions to it. But please don't accuse me of downright swearing that it's going to happen at a certain time, certain date & so on. But putting several different prophecies together we got somewhere around 1993 for the Lord to come.—If that's the proper interpretation. So you don't have too much longer to worry about, TTL!

41. THE RATE THINGS ARE GOING, WHETHER THE LORD CAME OR NOT, IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE THE WORLD IS GOING TO LAST that much longer! If man keeps going the way he's going, then man will put an end to himself! That's why the Lord's got to step in & intervene soon, because man's about to destroy himself & the Earth too, & the Lord's not going to let him.

42. DON'T WORRY ABOUT ALL THESE SCIENTIFIC THEORIES & PREDICTIONS & blah blah. They're always worrying that the sun's going to cool off in a few million years & we might get cold, maybe there won't be enough to eat. They used to say there won't be enough to eat by the year 2,000. Now they're reversing that. And they used to say we're going to be over-populated by then, now they've reversed that.

43. THERE'S ONE SURE THING YOU CAN TELL ABOUT SCIENTIFIC PREDICTIONS, THEY'RE GOING TO CHANGE. You can just about throw away all your science books that were written ten years ago & forget 'em. These Scientists change their opinions & their theories & their guesstimates & guesswork virtually every year. So if you read it last year, forget it! The sciences which are really basic, like the law of gravity‚ physics & biology & things like that, rarely if ever change. But all this theoretical malarkey about either the past or the future, especially palaeontology or evolution or predictions of astronomers & all that stuff is a lot of baloney most of the time, don't worry!

44. BUT ANYWAY, I DON'T THINK YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT GETTING TOO OLD one way or the other. And I'm sure you'll be beautiful to the end, Lord willing. You'll always be beautiful to me. You can rest assured there's one thing that makes us beautiful & you so beautiful & that's spirit: His Spirit of love & rest & peace. They see it in you & they wonder what it is, & it's beautiful!

45. I MUST BE A BORN-EXPLORER or something, I don't know what! I almost hate to ever go back down the same street I've walked down before! We take a walk & I hardly ever want to walk down the same street. I always want to walk down a different street, go someplace else. There was a beautiful poem that used to make me cry, I wish I could remember who wrote it:

46. "I SHALL NOT PASS THIS WAY AGAIN." It was a good poem because it was about doing good & being good to others at the moment that it happens and you see the need, because you might not pass that way again, that opportunity may not present itself again. I often think of that. I think that poem really made an impression on me, because as Maria knows, I'll often say, "No‚ I want to do it right now! I want to give it right now, I want to do it now!" Whatever it is, because who knows? A lot of times I've said, "Oh well, next time," & they weren't there next time! It didn't happen again that way. So you better do it when it happens & that moment, or that moment is gone forever & you may not pass that way again.

47. I KNOW I'VE MISSED A WHOLE LOT OF MOMENTS IN MY LIFE, but thank God, we're to forget the things that are behind. A lot of times I missed the boat‚ but thank God there are more times when I've caught it! We often get so fascinated & interested in somebody we see I long to witness to'm.

48. (MARIA: TELL THEM ABOUT THAT GIRL WE MET.) Oh yes, we got such a burden for her! I had an impulse, I probably should have, there wasn't much excuse for me going by that way, but I was going to go by & pat her on the shoulder. I thought about even maybe giving her a little peck on the forehead‚ I think she would have taken it!

49. SHE KEPT STUDYING ME & STUDYING ME. The rest of them were playing some stupid card game, but she was sort of sitting it out like it was too silly for her. She was trying to be nice, at a restaurant, a little Jewish girl. Turns out everybody that Maria & I seem to like the most turn out to be Jews. …

50. SHE WAS REAL CUTE and I was thinking how pretty she could have been if she'd had long hair. She looked sweet & pretty but she had that horrible short-shingled bob hairstyle! Anyhow, she was sweet & really interested in us.

51. SHE STUDIED US FROM THE TIME WE CAME IN, & I kept noticing that nearly every time I'd look over there she was looking straight at me. I don't know, it's just something about us I guess, the spirit of the Lord, just like they say about all of us.—There's just something‚ they don't know what it is. You FFers know how the men talk, something about you, "You're not like any other girl I've ever met!"—Which probably is true! They probably never met somebody that had as much of the Lord as you have‚ or really has the Spirit of the Lord & so much love!

52. THEY GET ATTRACTED TO US SOMETIMES CLEAR ACROSS A RESTAURANT or clear across a room. They just get fascinated looking at us for some reason. Well, Maria & I are always lovey with each other‚ even in public‚ we hold hands & we kiss. I guess that's another curious thing: It's not hard to understand why an old man should be in love with a young girl, but to see that this young girl acts like she's in love with the old man! I often can almost think what's going through their minds. She's wondering, "I wonder if I could be happy with an old man like that!" So we just got burdened about her.

53. THERE'S ONE THING YOU CAN DO, YOU CAN SMILE! So every time I'd catch her looking at me I'd smile & she'd sort of sometimes jerk away & smile a little embarrassed that she got caught. Every time I looked at her she was looking at me & we began smiling at each other.

54. ANOTHER THING YOU CAN DO, YOU CAN PRAY! Even if you don't get to say a word to them, the Lord puts the burden on your heart & you can pray for them. We often get burdened for people in public places where we don't even have a chance to speak to them. I've often prayed for them, "Lord‚ You can make them run into one of our folks someplace, or get a Letter or find You somehow, some way!" We didn't have a chance to talk to them but we got real burdened for them. When the Lord gives you a burden for somebody across the room, across the street from you or something, you can at least pray for them & say, "Lord, help them to find You" or "help them to find Salvation."

55. MAYBE YOU DIDN'T HAVE A CHANCE TO SPEAK TO THEM, BUT YOU GAVE THEM A SMILE just passing by on the street. Maybe they'll remember that all day, or maybe they'll remember the rest of their life somebody that really looked like they loved them. It's something you can do: Just your look, your smile, & your prayer—even if you don't get to say a word. I really believe it counts, I know it does. I just know it does. So there's a lot you can do in the way of witnessing just with a smile, just with a prayer‚ just with a look, just by your spirit!

56. NOW I WOULDN'T SAY THIS TO ANY CHURCH I KNOW OF BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THEY'D LET THEMSELVES OFF THE HOOK! You've practically got to beat church people over the head to get them to say a word for the Lord out in public towards any stranger or anything else, whereas you've got to beat our kids over the head to keep them from it if they're supposed to be selah! Church people are taught all their lives just be a shining example, "it's just the look on your face, they'll see the difference," blah blah blah! But in this case it's true, & if you're selah it's what you're going to have to do.

57. YOU CAN BE A WITNESS BY JUST YOUR LOOK, YOUR SMILE, YOUR SPIRIT, YOUR PRAYER. There's a lot you can do by just that look of love, communication, it's marvellous‚ it's wonderful! She & I were in real rapport! She didn't know what it was, but of course I knew what it was. I knew she was hungry & she somehow just sensed I had the answer & I just had to pray the Lord would give it to her.

58. IT USED TO BE WE NEVER FAILED TO PASS TRACTS. I never ever left a tip but with a tract‚ never met a person but would hand them a tract, never gave a beggar a thing without handing him a tract, a little paper with the Gospel on it. Even after we had to be careful about our security, we had different tracts printed up that were unidentified, with just a simple Gospel message. But, in our case now, with the situation what it is, even hearing you say "Praise the Lord‚" much less pass them a tract, is apt to identify you!—Because who else witnesses really very much but us & some of the other screwy sects? So even that can be dangerous, & Maria & I have had to sort of leave off tract-passing. But the Lord can do it, even if you aren't able to do it.—He can use your look, smile & prayer!

59. ALL RIGHT‚ I'M DONE! I've just been kind of visiting with you. I hope this has been enough for the time being & you've enjoyed our time together. Lord bless & keep everyone of you! I love you!

Copyright (c) 1997 by The Family