—Are You on the Downgrade & Can't Find the Brake?DO 120312/2/82

1. THIS IS THE 12th OF FEBRUARY, 1982, A DREAM WHICH I HAD EARLY THIS MORNING just before I woke up at six o'clock that was quite impressive & clear. I guess we could call it "Catch the Plane!" I still don't understand what it means but it was so clear & vivid like some of those message or warning dreams come. Some of them are like watching a movie & some are like being in the movie or it's happening in actual action, & that's the way I felt at this time during this dream.

2. I GUESS I'D BETTER TELL IT! It's an interesting story even if I don't know what it means, but I might find out as we go along, PTL! Or sometimes it comes to me afterward, after I have recounted it, or sometimes later. So here goes! PTL! TYJ! God bless you & help you have patience to bear with me on these strange stories!

3. WE WERE IN THIS OLD SORT OF BRITISH-TYPE TROPICAL RESORT HOTEL, a small hotel with a small circular lounge, reception hall or lobby. I remember distinctly its beauty, being circular‚ which is rather unusual, with a desk as you came down the stairs from the gallery above like a mezzanine off of which some of the room doors led.

4. AS YOU CAME DOWN THOSE STAIRS ONTO THE MAIN FLOOR OF THE LOUNGE, THE RECEPTION DESK WAS ON THE LEFT & the outdoor entrance was directly in front of you, very wide as though it was more than just double doors but those fold-back type of doors which are so often in the Tropics so they can get lots of air & plenty of breeze, because you can always keep cool & comfortable if you get plenty of breeze & dress lightly.

5. THE LOUNGE WAS FILLED WITH THOSE OLD–FASHIONED BAMBOO & WICKER CHAIRS that you used to see in old British movies of the Tropics or India or someplace like that, & out beyond the front door I could see a lovely garden with typical tropical shrubbery, small but with grass & a lovely lawn & tropical flower-bushes.

6. THE FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS SEEM TO GROW MOSTLY ON BUSHES OR VINES such as the hibiscus or the bougainvillea or trees such as the flaming vine or the royal poinciana tree. Also there are poinsettias & oleanders. Just watch out for the oleander leaves, the long narrow kind of spiked leaf, it's very poisonous. Don't let your children get near it & never put one in your mouth! They can make you very very sick & if you get too much, even kill you! Those are the large green bushes about head-high with little clusters of very small flowers, pink or white or red.

7. THE HIBISCUS IS ALSO A LARGE GREEN BUSH head-high, about the same size usually‚ with the large beautiful trumpet-shaped flowers with the stamens in the center. They claim there are 4,000 varieties & nearly a thousand different shades of colour. They're beautiful, varying everywhere from deep dark red to brilliant yellow! That's the hibiscus, a trumpet-shaped blossom, & during the season the bush will be covered with those beautiful hibiscus blossoms.

8. WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID WE DISCOVERED THAT IF YOU PULLED THEM OFF & SUCKED THE BOTTOM IT WAS AS SWEET AS HONEY, & THE BEES LOVE THEM TOO! But don't go around sucking everything there if you don't know what it's like because the leaves of the oleander, much darker green in colour & long & narrow with a sharp tip, are quite poisonous. In fact, in some areas in California they are now forbidden by law because so many people have chewed on them & gotten very ill.

9. SOME PEOPLE HAVE A STRANGE HABIT OF PICKING FLOWERS OR WEEDS & CHEWING ON THE STEMS! I used to do that a lot when I was a little boy, especially of certain grasses which had a kind of a sweet flavour. It was just sort of a nervous habit, I think, like chewing your fingernails. You've seen the famous pictures of the little farm boy lying dreaming on his back looking at the sky & the clouds with a stalk of hayseed in his mouth, straw hat, etc.? Well, that's the way I used to be!

10. OLEANDER LEAVES HAVE EVEN BEEN KNOWN TO FALL INTO THE SKILLET DURING COOKOUTS & a whole group at a cookout in California—it was in the news—got almost deathly sick because the man hadn't noticed that this one green leaf had fallen into the frying pan of the hamburgers on the barbecue grill outdoors in the yard from a nearby bush. The whole bunch at the party got sick!

11. THE TROPICS HAS ITS BEAUTIES BUT IT ALSO HAS ITS DANGERS, so don't go around touching everything or chewing on everything or sucking everything‚ not even everybodies. But the Tropics have the most beautiful gorgeous verdure & tropical flowers that you'll ever want to see!—Not much in the way of roses & tulips & the Northern-type of flowers which require colder weather‚ but a whole new breed & variety of its own, many of which you have never seen before. Whole trees just absolutely ablaze with gorgeous brightly coloured flowers as well as whole bushes! They seem to grow more in bushes & trees & vines than in flower beds.

12. THE GORGEOUS BOUGAINVILLEA VINES WITH THE SMALL CLUSTERS OF BLOSSOMS‚ & also the flaming vine, are bright red–orange to deep purple, gorgeous beautiful flowers that can cover the whole sidewall of a building or a whole protective wall of a property! They're climbing vines & they'll climb all over the place if you give'm a chance, & just covered with beautiful blossoms mostly year around. These tropical blossoms are in bloom most of the year, PTL, & always brightening up the landscape!

13. SO I COULD SEE THROUGH SUCH A GARDEN UP TO A LARGE HEDGE OF FLOWERING BUSHES in which there was also a gap leading directly onto the beach in the distance with its lovely graceful coconut palms. The half-reclining type of palm trees are usually the coconut palms‚ those which are usually bent way over & sometimes growing at a 45-degree angle or even 30-degree angle, sometimes very long trunks even bent at different angles & reaching up to a collection of what is known as palm fronds at the top,

14. LONG BRANCHES WITH THESE LONG SLENDER LEAVES BRANCHING OUT ON BOTH SIDES in great regularity tapering to their lovely tips waving gently in the breeze & at the base of which branches, of course, are the clusters of coconuts, in season, which I think is usually in the Wintertime that they become ripe. They are green, very small to begin with, the very early ones no larger than a marble or a golf ball growing in large clusters on a stem like bananas hanging from the base of the branches at the top of the trunk, nothing further down. (The "King Coconut" of the East is yellow with lots of milk!)

15. AND WHEN THESE BUNCHES WHERE THE COCONUTS ARE GOING TO GROW ARE IN BLOOM, they are usually covered with very bright beautiful little yellow flowers in abundance & with lots of busy bees humming around them to pollinate them! And then the little tiny coconuts begin to grow from the size of a marble to the size of your head!—Green at first & then finally as they become ripe, brown–spotted, & eventually completely brown.

16. AND THAT IS USUALLY WHEN THEY ARE COMPLETELY RIPE & FALL OFF OF THE TREE & you can just pick them up off the ground, ripe & ready for cracking & drinking the lovely, sweet, pure milk & eating the delicious candy–like meat! A delicious food-&-drink meal all in itself! One coconut will fill you up! The meat is rather tough & crunchy but very good for your teeth.

17. IT MIGHT BE A BIT HARD ON YOUR STOMACH or your bowels but the natives eat it & I used to eat it all the time when I was a boy & I never had any trouble. If you eat too much of it—you might eat a whole coconut yourself or two or three—it could give you a little bit of loose bowels if you don't look out. And of course never eat green coconut, when the peeling or the husk on the outside which is known as copra is green. Inside that green skin is a material that looks like excelsior, a nice packing about two or three inches deep before you get to the actual kernel of the nut itself which is hard & shell-like.

18. SOME OF YOU SAW ME ON "EDEN'S COCONUTS‚" ONE OF THE EDEN SERIES, HOW WE OPENED THE COCONUT TO DRINK THE MILK & EAT THE MEAT. You didn't see how tough it is to peel'm though & that's quite a job unless you're very clever with a machete like we saw in one of the videos sent us from the East. But you'd better be careful that you don't chop off your fingers also with one of those machetes because they're very very sharp!—A great big huge knife nearly a meter long of which there are all kinds of uses in the Tropics from cutting sugarcane to opening coconuts—& opening your nut too if a native should get too irate with you!

19. BUT MOST OF THE NATIVES ARE VERY PLACID & NON-VIOLENT IN THE TROPICS. It's an easygoing climate, they don't have much to fight about & it's a fairly easy life & so there isn't much aggression. Everybody is usually pretty happy & friendly, TTL!

20. BUT DON'T EVER EAT A GREEN COCONUT! You can tell green coconuts by the looks of the outside of the peeling which is all green & it's not even beginning to get ripe until it develops fairly good-sized brown spots on its peeling, & the browner it is the better. In fact, when it is all brown & the peeling is somewhat dried on the outside it is ready & ripe for eating. Before that if you open it you'll find that the milk is more watery looking‚ not as greyish white as a ripe coconut.

21. THE MILK OF A RIPE COCONUT LOOKS KIND OF GREYISH WHITE LIKE MALE SEMEN. The milk of a green coconut, if any at all, is very watery & very sour & bitter & the meat is soft & jelly-looking. But a real ripe coconut will be completely brown, the outer husks somewhat dried & shrunken & you can often find them lying about on the ground. However, you have to be careful you don't get one lying on the ground that's been there many weeks or months because it's apt to become completely rotten.

22. BUT THE LORD HAS MADE THEM SO THAT THEY WILL KEEP QUITE A LONG WHILE if you pick them when they are fully ripe or fallen to the ground, which they do. You don't have to climb the trees to harvest them‚ they will eventually just fall off naturally by themselves. Just be careful you're not under one of them when it falls because they can fall from the height of a 30-‚ 40- or 50–feet-tall tree & give you quite a bonk on the head, enough to crack your coconut or certainly knock you out or give you a pretty bad bump!

23. SO WATCH OUT ABOUT WALKING UNDER COCONUT TREES DURING THE RIPENING HARVEST SEASON that one doesn't blow off in the breeze & bonk you on the head! But this business about monkeys throwing coconuts at you is a bit farfetched actually. Most of the coconuts are so large that most monkeys couldn't even begin to pick them! They're very tough to get off the tree‚ just to twist them around rapidly until you twist the stem off.

24. BUT YOU CAN PICK UP AN OLD COCONUT, it's all dried & the husk is very dry & you can tell it's too old & you'll most likely find when you open it up that the milk is all dried & gone & the meat is rotten. So watch out for that too, especially if it has wormholes in it or anything like that. (Kings are yellow & brown-spotted when ripe.)

25. BUT I'D SAY THE LOBBY WASN'T MORE THAN 30– OR 40-FEET ACROSS, ACTUALLY NOT VERY LARGE. Small lobby, small hotel, but like a rotunda with this beautiful wicker & bamboo furniture, very comfortable looking, & the beautiful garden beyond surrounded by its flowering bushes & trees & vines & the tall slender coconut trees loaded with coconuts.

26. OF COURSE, THERE ARE OTHER PALM TREES AS WELL‚ AS YOU KNOW. There are the stately Royal palms with perfectly vertical trunks that look like they've been plastered or like columns of cement. Beautiful white trunks & just a little cluster of branches at the tall tops.

27. AND THERE ARE THE WASHINGTONIAN PALMS which have old branch stubs all the way up the trunk, very jagged where the branches have been broken or trimmed off from the very ground to the top, not very tall & in some ways a bit ugly-looking because the ugly-looking branch stubs are all around & all the way up the trunk‚ but lovely branchy palm fronds at the top.

28. HOWEVER, THEY'RE VERY DANGEROUS FOR TRYING TO CLIMB or anything because they're very full of big, long, spiked thorns, & there's nothing that I know of that grows on it that's worth anything, it's just for a decoration. And frequently all kinds of bugs live in these because they're so well-protected by their thorns, & that's the Washingtonian palm.

29. THEN THERE'S THE CABBAGE PALM which is similar but smaller, out of the heart of which you can get a thing called the cabbage of the Cabbage palm which some natives eat. I think it has to be cooked & I'm not too familiar with that.

30. BUT OF COURSE THEN THERE'S THE DATE PALM which is also a stately vertical palm tree with a small bunch of branches at the top, & in their season, heavily laden with large bunches of dates hanging down as big as bunches of coconuts or bunches of bananas almost, & of course you know how delicious dates are! These two, as I recall‚ have rather rugged trunks.

31. BUT THE COCONUT TREE IS MADE BEAUTIFULLY with little sort of ledges all around the trunk that make good handholds & footholds for scrambling right up the trunk to get yourself a coconut if you need to if you can't find any lying on the ground.

32. ANYHOW, BEYOND WAS THE SOFT WARM SURF OF THE TROPICS, GENTLY ROLLING WAVES. I've never seen the Tropics surf very heavy or furious except during a hurricane or a storm. Although they certainly have some huge rollers in Hawaii from what I've seen in the movies, gigantic waves, dangerous waves but great for the very brave surfers! But there were little thatched shelters out on the beach like they so often have on tropical beaches for you to sit under in the shade, because the sun can be quite hot.

33. I'D ADVISE YOU TO SIT IN THE SHADE & NOT OUT IN THE SUN because you can get a good sunburn in just a few minutes in the hot tropical sun with the sun directly overhead in the Equatorial zones‚ & except for the fact that the air is heavily laden with moisture to protect you, you could get a very bad sun stroke.

34. BUT ALL THE YEARS I LIVED IN MIAMI, FLORIDA‚ NEARLY HALF MY LIFE, I RAN AROUND BAREHEADED. I never knew what it was to have a hat & of course my hair turned almost golden or platinum blond during Summertime when I was on the beach swimming so much of the time, bleached out by the sun, but I never had a sunstroke that I know of.

35. WHEREAS IN VERY HOT COUNTRIES THAT ARE EXTREMELY DRY LIKE TEXAS & SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES you can very easily get a sunstroke because there's no moisture in the air to protect you from the sun's very strong burning rays & sunstroke can give you quite a headache & make you quite sick at your stomach, extremely so for sometimes a day or two or three even & you'll have a running off of the bowels, etc. Or even a sunburn can do the same thing, give you a fever & make you sick.

36. GOD DIDN'T INTEND FOR YOU TO LIE OUT IN THAT HOT SUN & BAKE ON THOSE MEAT RACKS like you see the stupid foolish tourists usually doing trying to get a suntan to take back home to show off their vacation, that they've been on a holiday to some tropical clime where they could afford to get a suntan, a status symbol. In those hot tropical climates you shouldn't spend more than half-an-hour to an hour at the most out in the hot sun without a sun helmet or sun hat & some type of shade or shelter. Often they have little tables with umbrellas & nice comfortable reclining beach chairs, which are nice.

37. SUCH WAS THE SCENE THROUGH THE OPEN HOTEL DOOR which was really more like an entire side of the lobby with the doors folded back. So often they have these lattice venetian-type doors with the little slats so that the air can come through, because you can keep cool & comfortable in the Tropics most of the time if you have plenty of air & breeze. So usually they open up everything as much as they can so the breeze can sweep through the breezeway & that keeps you cool without any fans, air conditioning, air coolers or anything.

38. IN FACT, WE NEVER HAD AIRCONDITIONING OR AIR COOLERS WHEN I WAS YOUNG because all you needed was to get that 20-knot breeze which comes up for most of the day on any tropical seacoast. The onshore breeze blowing from the sea also helps to blow the mosquitoes away so you're always thankful when it's good & strong. We always groaned when the breeze stopped sometimes or then blew the other way at night from the swamps & the Everglades & blew the mosquitoes in instead of blowing them away, but that was rare.

39. ANYWAY, IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE OLD–FASHIONED HOTEL. It looked quite modest & old & reasonable & we were just coming down from the gallery or mezzanine-like floor above where there was this balcony that ran across one side of the lobby about half-a-floor up & off of which there appeared to be rooms & a hall leading on back into the interior of the hotel.

40. AND A SMALL GROUP OF US WERE COMING DOWN CARRYING OUR LUGGAGE. I can remember particularly that David was there & I believe Maria as well & a few others & we seemed to be in a hurry, because it appeared that we were late for our plane. As so often happens on those tropical islands & resorts, the planes, particularly when I was young, used to be amphibious, or they used to be what we called ducks or clippers like the early Pan American Clipper flying boats which landed on the water.

41. AND THE AIRPORT AS SO OFTEN HAPPENS IN THOSE VERY SMALL RESORTS‚ PARTICULARLY ISLAND RESORTS, WAS A SMALL BAY a few miles or kilometers from the hotel. Apparently the airplane had already landed in the bay & had taxied up to the pier or wharf as they used to do in good ol' Pan American Clipper ship days which flew from Miami to all parts of the Caribbean & South America.

42. IN FACT, IT WAS THE AIRPLANE WHICH REALLY PIONEERED SOUTH AMERICA FOR TOURISM, as until the advent of those Pan American Clipper ships not very many tourists went that far to see the World, much less for a vacation. It would've taken too long by boat & as much as weeks or months to go to the various parts of South America. But with the coming of the Pan American Clippers you could be there within just a few hours or a day or two to any part of South America.

43. IT WAS FASCINATING TO ME AS A BOY TO GO DOWN TO THE DINNER KEY PAN AMERICAN AIR TERMINAL & watch the Clipper ships land in the calm, sparkling, Biscayne blue waters of the bay & taxi on the water just like a boat right up to the wharf where they would either put a ramp from the wharf to the door for temporary landings,

44. OR IF THEY WERE LANDING TO BE SERVICED FOR QUITE AWHILE & IT WAS THEIR DESTINATION END OF THE LINE, divers would attach wheels to the bottom & then a tractor would attach a cable to the nose & pull it up a ramp right onto the dock to make it very easy for the passengers then to land, coming down a small set of steps wheeled up to the side of the plane with its door only four or five feet, maybe six at the most, above the dock level.

45. AND IN THE DREAM THE PLANE HAD LANDED IN A SMALL BAY, pulled up to the dock, & apparently just a gangplank had been thrown across for the passengers to board. Here we were just leaving the hotel & in a hurry & late & we went quickly & caught a taxi or some type of cab & started off for the airport in a hurry trying to make it on time‚ late as I seldom am. I usually try to go early instead, so what had made us late I don't know.

46. BUT ALL OF A SUDDEN AT ONE OF THE STOPS SOMEWHERE THE ENGINE HAD APPARENTLY OVERHEATED & THE MOTOR CONKED OUT as they so often will in those very hot countries because of the low compression of an old worn-out engine & you have to wait till the engine cools off before you can even start it again. But the taxi driver‚ knowing we were in a hurry, did his best to try to start it up. He kept revving the starter over & over again till he had knocked the battery flat & it wouldn't even turn the motor over any more.

47. SO WE QUICKLY GOT OUT & LOOKED AROUND FOR SOME OTHER TRANSPORTATION & I noticed this big old Cadillac that seemed to be quite ancient. I thought, "Boy, that'd sure be plenty of room for us!" It was a huge old monster, very old vintage, but it was half-buried in the sand. I thought‚ "Well, there's no way to get that thing unstuck out of the sand!"

48. AND WATCH OUT IF YOU'RE DRIVING IN THE TROPICS, SAND IS AS BAD AS MUD, OR MAYBE WORSE! It's much worse on your car too as well as the tropical salt air which will eat holes in your car in no time if you don't keep it well-coated with wax & well-washed almost daily from the sea breeze salt which collects on the car until you can actually run your finger along the car & taste the salt & see it crystallising on the surface of the car from the salty sea air.

49. BECAUSE NEARLY ALL OF THOSE TROPICAL SEAFRONTS ARE VERY MOIST & DAMP JUST FROM THE SEA BREEZE, the salt air which is very corrosive to anything metal. So watch out about that. They even have to frequently replace the electric lines because the salt air corrodes them so rapidly until they fall apart.

50. THEN I SUDDENLY SAW ANOTHER CAR CRUISING BY & I GUESS IT WAS ANOTHER TAXI. We hailed it down quickly & loaded into it & oddly enough I told the driver to shove over! I wanted to drive myself because I don't trust too many of these taxi drivers' driving & I was in a hurry & I planned to drive a little bit faster than normal‚ which is not good. But anyway‚ I made him shove over & I got in the driver's seat & I drove rapidly to get to the little airport bay & the dockside plane.

51. BUT WHEN WE GOT THERE WE FOUND QUITE A CROWD HAD ALREADY ASSEMBLED, … & they were practically fighting each other & screaming at each other & cursing each other fighting to get to the gangplank & to go up the gangplank into the plane. It seemed it was quite late & looked like a lot of them had been late like us. It was overcrowded, & sometimes in the old days of air travel before reservation facilities it was just first-come, first–served! Whoever got there first got on, & if you were late you didn't!

52. SO AS SOMETIMES I USED TO DO WITH TRAINS & BUSES & A FEW TIMES WITH PLANES, we quickly unloaded there at the dockfront & I told the folks, "You guys stay with the luggage!" And it seemed by this time David was the only one there. I had told the guys to stay with the luggage but a little later I looked back & noticed it was just David. I don't know what happened to the rest of you!

53. BUT I SAID, "YOU STAY WITH THE LUGGAGE RIGHT NOW & I'LL RUN ONBOARD QUICK & GET A SEAT & put my carry-ons on it to save it & I'll come back & help you with the luggage." Well, you don't often carry your luggage on the plane like that now, so it reminds me of the old-fashioned days when you used to. But anyhow‚ I left David there with the luggage & I fought my way onto the plane. …

54. AND SUDDENLY IT TURNED OUT TO BE VERY VERY LARGE, ALMOST AS BIG AS AN OCEANLINER & reminded me very much of a cruise ship. …

55. APPARENTLY FOLKS WERE BUYING THEIR TICKETS RIGHT ON THE PLANE & lining up at this ticket window, so I quickly got lined up. In fact, we were just scrambling trying to get to the ticket window‚ & as peculiar & odd & strange as some things so often happen in dreams, I was so anxious to get there & get my ticket I climbed through the window & fell head-over-heels into the office beyond—quite a large foyer-type office—to the surprise of the purser & the officer standing there!

56. I STARTED PICKING MYSELF UP OFF THE FLOOR & I SAID, "I WANT A TICKET QUICK!" I couldn't swear exactly where it was to but it seemed liked it was somewhere in the Caribbean, but anyhow, in the Tropics, & I thought this plane was going to where we were going. I thought it was our plane. And just about the time I was asking them to sell me a ticket the plane apparently had loaded & was already taxiing out into open water preparing to take off!

57. I SAID I WANTED A TICKET TO THIS CERTAIN DESTINATION, wherever it was I said I was going which wasn't supposed to be far away, to some nearby mainland city or something it seemed. We'll call the destination I asked for Miami just for the sake of convenience‚ but I don't know that I remembered any name at all.

58. AND THE FIRST OFFICER OR THE PILOT OR CAPTAIN, WHOEVER IT WAS standing there in uniform, captain's or officer's hat on, laughed in my face! He said, "Ha! Ha!" And just then I could feel the plane had picked up speed & was hitting the tops of the little wavelets & was taking off & we were airborne!

59. HE LAUGHED IN MY FACE & SAID, "HA! MIAMI?!—WE'RE BOUND FOR JERUSALEM!" And my heart sank with that word when he said Jerusalem! I thought, "My God! … How did this ever happen?" And evidently it'd also taken off & left the poor Family behind & David standing with the luggage on the shore! Ha! …

60. I WAS SO UPSET ABOUT IT MY HEART SANK & I WAS SO DISMAYED! It was almost like a nightmare that here I was on a plane bound for Jerusalem & there was no turning back! And it so upset me that it woke me up! So that was the end of the dream & I woke up about six o'clock in the morning at the end of the dream & lay there nearly an hour thinking about it‚ trying to put it together & trying to figure it out, trying to fathom what it means, searching for some kind of interpretation—which I don't, as I say, usually get until I tell it. But I don't know, I still don't know what it means.

61. MAYBE IT'S A WARNING NOT TO GET TOO FAR AHEAD OF THE FAMILY … & certainly don't head for Jerusalem…!—And most of all, haste makes waste! Don't be so late in running to catch a plane or train or bus or anything that you get in such a hurry that you're not safe in your travelling & driving & you're not sure about the plane, train or vehicle you're boarding.

62. MAKE MIGHTY SURE BEFORE YOU BOARD ANY KIND OF PLANE‚ TRAIN OR VEHICLE THAT IT'S THE ONE YOU WANT that's going where you want to go, & certainly don't be so pushy that you're fighting your way through the other passengers to try to get on first or early so you can get a seat. It's better to be polite & courteous & just take your turn & not try to run to the head of the queue! So it seems I was wrong all the way! We were late in getting started & in too big a hurry to get there & too eager to get on & in too big a rush so that I got on the wrong plane … headed the wrong direction & with the little Family left behind on the shore with the luggage, of all things!

63. SO I WOULD SAY THAT MAKES A GOOD LESSON ON HASTE MAKES WASTE & SQUEEZE DON'T JERK OR YOU'LL MISS THE MARK ENTIRELY & maybe land far afield somewhere else that you didn't intend to even go to! I would suggest in your plans to go South you also plan very carefully & slowly & with great thought & prayer & care to make sure you go where the Lord wants you to be & where it'll be best for you as well as your work & ministry & finances & others with you.

64. DON'T GO SO FAR AHEAD OF THE FAMILY THAT YOU DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING OR WHERE YOU'RE GOING but you're just in a big hurry & you might just land where you didn't intend to leap! Look before you leap! Be sure you're going to land where you intend to & want to & not someplace else because you leaped too quick & too suddenly & your aim was poor, or you may land yourself into a peck of trouble instead!

65. SO ABOUT ALL I CAN FIGURE OUT THAT THAT DREAM MAY MEAN IS JUST A WARNING NOT TO BE IN SUCH A HURRY & ALWAYS START EARLY. Plan ahead so you don't have to hurry & you're not late & you don't have to make a fast dangerous journey by vehicle to your carrier—plane, train or whatever it may be—so that you endanger yourself & the lives of others in driving too fast & then trying to scramble aboard before others wanting to get a good seat or a seat at all.

66. THAT WAS SOMEWHAT SELFISH OF ME & CERTAINLY WE WERE LATE IN STARTING & TOO HURRIED & in too great haste to get aboard so that I actually got on the wrong plane & it took off sooner than I expected leaving the little Family behind. So be sure you don't catch the wrong plane or you're not late to the train so that you scramble onto the wrong one!

67. I'VE DONE THAT TOO UPON OCCASION IN THE PAST—GOT ON THE WRONG DOCK & THE WRONG TRACK! We got on the wrong train & we went the wrong direction one time in Italy & landed in the wrong town, in Chiávari instead of Zoagli, & we had to wait an hour or two for the next train to take us back! Before I knew how to pronounce it I think I called it Chiávari or something like that, which means "to fuck"!

68. ANYWAY, THAT WAS ONE TIME WHEN I DIDN'T SPEAK ITALIAN & COULDN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE CONDUCTORS WERE SAYING. They were calling the train & we didn't understand it but it was leaving so we just ran & jumped on even when it was starting to move. Maria & I just taking a little trip we thought into Rapallo. But instead of that the train was going in the opposite direction to Chiávari or whatever it's called.

69. WE WASTED TWO OR THREE MORE HOURS OF TIME in having to come clear back to Zoagli so that it was too late then even to go where we had planned to go! Anyhow, it was an interesting trip & we ate in this new little town‚ a different town that we had never been to before. So once in awhile God's disappointments turn out to be His appointments!

70. BUT IN THIS CASE OF THE LATE RUSH TO CATCH THE PLANE MY APPOINTMENT TURNED OUT TO BE A DISAPPOINTMENT & a very tragic one at that, which apparently caused quite a disruption in my schedule, because it was evidently a much greater distance to Jerusalem than it was to where I had planned to go! And God knows what would happen to me in Jerusalem …, or when I'd ever get back—if ever! So my heart really sank & I felt, oh, terrible! Like I was about to cry! It was such a tragedy & so bad that it woke me up!

71. SO DON'T EVER BE SO SLOW & SO LATE THAT YOU DON'T PLAN AHEAD & that you have to rush & hustle & bustle & hurry until you travel dangerously & maybe even get on the wrong transportation going to the wrong place. It just doesn't pay to get in too big a hurry! It just doesn't pay to rush. Haste makes waste! Squeeze, don't jerk! Look before you leap & read all the rest of the Letters I've written on the subject‚ & that's pretty good sound advice & I advise you to follow it! PTL?

72. SO GOD BLESS YOU & HELP YOU TO PLAN AHEAD SO THAT YOU DON'T GET UP TOO LATE, you don't sleep too late or you don't finish your meals too late to get off to your plane or train or even ship & miss the boat! That was a tragic occurrence in the old days when boats were the chief form of long distance transportation to other parts of the World & they didn't run very frequently. From some remote tropical resort you might have to wait weeks or even months for another boat!

73. SO WHEN YOU MISSED THE BOAT, BOY‚ YOU REALLY MISSED IT, LET ME TELL YOU!—And you might have to stay there a long time! Some of those remote resorts only get a ship or a boat about once or twice a year. So if you miss one of those boats, you have really missed it & you are really stuck & in a pickle or a dilemma or in the coconut juice or whatever you want to call it!

74. SO FOR GOD'S SAKE & YOUR SAKE, FAMILY, PLEASE TRY TO PLAN AHEAD & plan to leave not just on time but much much earlier than would even be normally necessary to make sure, in case there are any delays or unexpected stalls such as our cab stalling & transportation difficult to get. Maybe you'll find it's difficult to get a cab at that hour if you haven't planned ahead & made an appointment for a cab to pick you up at a certain time.

75. OFTEN IF WE HAD TO TAKE A CAB SOMEWHERE WE PHONED INTO THE COMPANY A DAY AHEAD or hours ahead & made an appointment for a certain time for the taxi to be there. That's a very wise thing if you have to be in town or at an airport or train station at a certain time & you have to go by taxi. You'd better not wait to the last minute to call one or they might all be busy. You'd better call hours in advance & make a reservation for that time.

76. USUALLY THE TAXIS GET THERE RIGHT ON TIME OR EVEN EARLY‚ & if they're early they're willing to wait for you without any extra charge & you'll have plenty of time to have them help you load your luggage & have a nice comfortable easy leisurely drive to the airport or the station or the pier so to be sure you get there, not on time, but way ahead of time so you'll feel relaxed & not pressured & under great tension & hurried & worried as to whether you're going to be able to make it or not!

77. FOR GOD'S SAKE, FOLKS‚ DON'T GET IN SUCH A HURRY THAT YOU REALLY MAKE A MESS OF THINGS! Squeeze don't jerk or you may miss the mark all together that you were trying to hit, & that's a sin! I've found that since your early Chain leaders were perpetually late & never left on time, they were never even on time! They were always late because they always started late & then they rushed & drove like mad at the last minute & nearly killed themselves getting there & often missed their train or plane as a result just because of their poor planning & laziness in getting up or poor planning ahead to eat a meal well ahead of time in order to have plenty of time to get there.

78. THERE'S REALLY NO EXCUSE FOR BEING LATE, unless there's really some major emergency or car breakdown or whatever. But in all my years of meeting television station executives in set appointments at a certain time I think I was only late one or two times in 15 years because I always planned way ahead & planned to get there from a half-an-hour to an hour ahead.

79. I FIGURED IF THE TAXI GOT A FLAT OR SOMETHING HE'D HAVE TIME TO CHANGE WHEELS & GO ON & I'd still get there on time. Or if something went haywire with the bus & it conked out or something there'd be time for them to send another bus to pick up the passengers & I'd still get to my destination on time. So I always planned ahead & I planned to leave early & go early & get there even before everybody else & that way often made sure I got a good seat as well. I'd be first in line!

80. I'D OFTEN ARRIVE AT THE GREYHOUND BUS STATION HALF-AN-HOUR OR AN HOUR OR MORE BEFORE THE BUS LEFT & find that the bus hadn't even arrived yet! But I would stand in the bus bay on the waiting platform right by the gate that was going to open where the bus was going to come in & I'd set my luggage down there & sit on it, put my overcoat on top of it & sit on that comfortable little stool‚ first in line ready to get on the bus & choose my own seat to my own comfort! Trains too.

81. MANY TRAINS YOU CAN'T RESERVE YOUR SEAT & YOU HAVE TO TAKE WHAT YOU CAN GET, & if you're late, you may not get any! Planes nowadays mostly operate on a reserved seat basis, but there are a few air buses in operation on popular routes which operate on a first-come, first–served basis & whoever gets there in time to get a seat gets whatever seat he can grab first & the late ones don't get any at all if it's crowded.

82. SO FOR GOD'S SAKE & YOUR SAKE & YOUR FAMILY'S SAKE & THE WORK'S SAKE & your friends' sake & the people who are planning to meet you at the other end, don't be one of these last-minute Christians‚ these Johnny-Come-Lately's who are always leaving late & always in a big hurry & always getting there at the last minute or too late & don't give yourself enough time & leeway & a cushion of half-an-hour to an hour or two to be sure you get there in oodles of time to check your luggage‚ check in‚ get your tickets stamped, etc., & your boarding pass & even first in line at the door or the gate so you don't have to be far behind a long line of other passengers whom you have to crawl along behind carrying your heavy carry-ons & then try to push past them while they're trying to get settled in their seat to find your seat & bumping everybody with your luggage & having a hard time squeezing through!

83. WHEN WE PLAN TO TAKE A PLANE SOMEWHERE THE AIRLINES THEMSELVES USUALLY REQUIRE YOU TO CHECK IN AT LEAST ONE HOUR IN ADVANCE of the flight time, & since we usually have quite a bit of luggage we usually check in two hours before flight time when the flight desk first opens‚ & that is usually anywhere from one to two hours ahead of the flight time. Particularly if it's a large flight with lots of passengers they'll open two hours ahead to get the early birds first, & on long large flights we found it really pays to get there to the airport two hours in advance of the flight time.

84. I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT LEAVING HOME TWO HOURS IN ADVANCE when it takes you an hour to get to the airport & you just barely make it in by check-in time. But I'm talking about planning perhaps to leave home three hours before flight time giving yourself a good hour to get to the airport. You say, "Well, it only takes half-an-hour to get there." Well, how to do you know? There might be a traffic jam, accident blocking traffic‚ flat tire, engine conk-out or something. You might have to grab another cab or whatever & lose half-an-hour or an hour. So plan ahead & give yourself much more time than you normally would need in case there's any kind of emergency or delay or stoppage or slowdown or whatever so that you're not caught short & found to be late.

85. REMEMBER THE FIVE FOOLISH VIRGINS WHO WENT TO SLEEP & OVERSLEPT? And when they said, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!" they woke & discovered they weren't ready! They had to rush around & get things together & get some more oil for their lamps & by the time they finally got their baggage together & rushed to catch the Rapture it had already left on a rush to the door or the gate of the Bridegroom's Chamber & found that it had already been closed & they were left outside! (Mt.25:1-13)

86. SO IT SEEMS THERE ARE GOING TO BE SOME PEOPLE WHO MIGHT EVEN BE LATE TO HEAVEN & miss the Marriage Supper of the Lamb because they were not ready & overslept & didn't prepare sufficiently, didn't have oil in their lamps. They seemed to have had a little bit to begin with—which sort of typifies the oil of the Holy Spirit or the Word—but they didn't have enough & it ran out.

87. WHEN THEY OVERSLEPT & WOKE UP THEY FOUND OUT THAT THEIR LAMPS HAD GONE OUT, the oil was gone, they didn't have any, & by the time they found some the Bridegroom had already come & gone & taken His five Wise Virgins with Him—there's a multiple marriage, by the way—& taken off & shut the door & the five foolish ones were left outside!

88. THE HOLINESS PEOPLE TRY TO SAY THAT THAT SHOWS THAT SOME PEOPLE CAN BE SAVED & THEN LOST because they did have oil in their lamps & they were once lit, therefore they claim they were once saved. Well‚ this doesn't necessarily signify that. It could simply mean that they had received the Light of the Gospel, at least they had heard about it & they had sampled a little oil & had a little Light to begin with, but they never really came through, never really received the fullness of the Holy Spirit, never really got fully saved & they just didn't have, you might say, enough salvation to really save them.

89. YOU SAY, "WELL, HOW MUCH DO YOU HAVE TO HAVE?" WELL‚ YOU'VE CERTAINLY GOT TO HAVE JESUS & HAVE RECEIVED HIM!—Confessed your sins, believed on Him, received Him & confessed Him to be saved, & if you haven't gone all the way of all four of those steps you're not yet saved! Just because you've confessed you're a sinner doesn't save you & just because you believe in the Bible & God & you've heard about Jesus & you believe He's the Son of God & all that, yet you have not really received Him personally & asked Him to come into your heart, your life, & save you personally, you're not necessarily going to be saved!

90. YOU HAVE TO TAKE JESUS YOURSELF AS YOUR PERSONAL SAVIOUR TO SAVE YOU! Just believing in the church & God & the Bible & all that doesn't necessarily save you. You have to personally believe in Jesus yourself & receive Him personally for your own personal salvation or you have not had enough Light‚ you have not got enough Oil of the Spirit of the Word, & what little you've gotten is going to run out. You're going to go to sleep & be caught napping & unprepared & not ready because you put off accepting Jesus as your own personal Saviour.

91. YOU'VE HEARD THE GOSPEL & YOU WERE INCLINED TO BELIEVE IT & you in a sense know it's true, but you kept putting it off & postponing it to procrastinate & say, "Well‚ yeah, but later. I'll do it later." That's as good as a no or a rejection & it could leave you lost & damned & going to Hell with the rest of the sinners, some of whom may be better off than you were because maybe they never even heard!

92. MAYBE THEY NEVER EVEN HAD A CHANCE TO HEAR THE GOSPEL & BELIEVE & RECEIVE JESUS & God is apt to be better to them than He is to you! Because you had your chance & you put it off & you rejected Him & you procrastinated, you delayed, you were late, until it was too late—like the Five Foolish Virgins—& suddenly at the last minute when you heard that Jesus had come, the Bridegroom had come, you rushed & tried to receive Him & get ready & get saved & it was too late!

93. HE'D ALREADY COME & GONE WITH HIS BRIDE, the Five Wise Virgins, & had gone to that Heavenly City, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, that great tremendous celebration of our glorious victory over sin in this life through Jesus Christ & His grace & His free Salvation! It is all so easy & all so free & you could've gotten it so easily if you had received Him when there was still time. But you keep putting it off & procrastinating.

94. IF YOU'RE LATE & YOU TRY TO RUSH AROUND AT THE LAST MINUTE TO RECEIVE JESUS, I'LL WARN YOU RIGHT NOW, IT MAY BE TOO LATE! If you say, "Well, I'm going to wait & see if it really happens‚ I'm going to wait & see if the Tribulation really occurs. I'm going to wait & see if the Antichrist really comes, if he really arises & is revealed‚ then I'll know it's all true when he starts demanding the Mark of the Beast & worship. Then I'll know it's really going to happen & it'll only be three-&–a-half years then till Jesus is going to come & I'll have plenty of time to get ready! I'll have plenty of time to get saved, I'll have plenty of time to receive Jesus then!"

95. LET ME WARN YOU, NOAH PREACHED TO THOSE WICKED PEOPLE OF THAT HORRIBLE WICKED WORLD 120 YEARS BEFORE THE FLOOD, in the Antediluvian Period, & they never repented! They were probably waiting to see if it was really going to rain, if it was really going to happen, then maybe they'd climb on board with him. In the meantime they just laughed at him, sneered, jeered & persecuted him & his sons as they were 120 years building that ship. Then finally they went in seven days before it began to rain & it says that God shut the door (Ge.7:16) so that nobody else could get in. And by the time it started to rain & rain & rain & it started to flood it was too late for that wicked generation who were left behind to drown in the flood of iniquity!

96. SO IF YOU KEEP PUTTING SALVATION OFF & expect maybe when it's proved to you all these things are going to happen, then maybe you'll believe it, then maybe you'll receive it, then maybe you'll get saved, let me tell you, Brother, it's going to be too late! "He that being often reproved & hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be destroyed & that without remedy!" (Pr.29:1)

97. YOU'RE NOT GOING TO HAVE TIME TO REPENT! You're not going to have time to believe or receive or accept Jesus or get saved! It's going to be too late for you! Your heart's going to grow harder & harder with every day that passes by that you reject Jesus & put off accepting Him as your Saviour for your salvation.

98. YOU'RE GOING TO GET HARDER & HARDER until you become so hardened to the Spirit & His Word that you become darkened in your understanding‚ alienated from the life of God & past feeling so you don't even feel like getting saved any more! (Eph.4:18,19) You don't even care about Jesus any more! You don't believe any of that bunk any more that those hippies were preachin' at you, you think it's all a bunch of baloney & malarkey & you're hard & cold, hard as nails & cold as ice & unbelieving, scorning & scoffing & scornful & sneering to where you are so hard, so cold, so darkened, so alienated that you're completely past feeling!

99. YOU'VE HARDENED YOUR NECK UNTIL YOU'LL BE SUDDENLY DESTROYED WITHOUT ANY REMEDY, without any salvation, without any possibility, without time to receive Jesus & it'll be too late! You got started too late! You ran out of what little Spirit & pleading of His Spirit, what little oil that you could've had! You ran out of what little time you had & what little Light you had, until you wound up asleep & in darkness when the Bridegroom came.

100. AND WHEN THE SHOUT IS NOISED ABROAD, "BEHOLD, THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH!" YOU'RE GOING TO WAKE UP TOO LATE, too lost, waiting too long & it's too late to be in a hurry at the last minute! The Bridegroom & His Bride & His faithful ones, His wise ones will be gone & you foolish‚ ridiculous, silly, stupid, idiotic old sinners are going to be left behind to suffer the Wrath of God poured out upon the unbelievers, rejecters, the procrastinators, the hardhearted wicked!—You who refused to believe when there was time, even though you had the Light & a touch of Oil, a bit of the Oil of His Spirit pleading with your heart & with your mind.

101. HE SAYS "HIS SPIRIT WILL NOT ALWAYS STRIVE WITH MAN!" (Ge.6:3) "There's a way that seemeth right to a man"—it seemed right to you to put it off to the last minute—"but the end thereof are the ways of death" & you're going to die in your iniquity, die in your sins! (Pr.14:12) If you're going to put off receiving Christ & being saved to the last minute‚ till your deathbed, you're going to find out it may be too late! You may die too suddenly! Suddenly be destroyed in an accident, a sickness‚ a heart attack or some sudden emergency, or even waiting till the end of the Tribulation, & Christ comes before you expected it & you didn't have time to get saved!

102. YOU'RE GOING TO SUDDENLY FIND YOURSELF IN A LAST-MINUTE RUSH & IT'S TOO LATE TO CATCH THE RIGHT PLANE & you may find yourself winding up heading in the wrong direction where you don't want to go with all the wicked sinners to … "that wicked city Babylon & Egypt wherein our Lord was crucified" … (Re.11:8).

103. YOU'RE GOING TO WIND UP WITH THE REST OF THE SINNERS & THE REST OF THE WICKED!—The ones you thought you were better than, because, after all, you did go to church & you did believe a little bit in the Bible, a little bit in God & Jesus & you had a little bit of the Light of His Word & Spirit. But you waited a little too long, you went to sleep in your indifference & coldness & lukewarmness till you cooled off & "the love of many waxed cold" (Mt.24:12) & yours waxed cold along with it until it was too late!

104. YOU BECAME DARKENED IN UNDERSTANDING‚ ALIENATED FROM THE LIFE OF GOD, PAST FEELING & you didn't even feel like it any more, you didn't even believe it any more! You wouldn't even accept it any more, you didn't even feel like getting saved any more & it's too late! Too late, too late! As the old poem used to go: "Too late, too late! The carriage sped down the fearful embankment at an awful rate! And many there were who died that day & suffered an awful fate!"

105. OR LIKE THE CARRIAGE DRIVER THAT MY GRANDFATHER HAD PREACHED TO TIME & AGAIN. In the old days sometimes going downhill the carriage or wagon was too heavy, especially big beer wagons & that sort of thing were too heavy even for the team of horses of four to six to hold back the terrible weight on a downhill grade. So the team driver had to have brakes on his wagon or carriage & had to really stand on that brake to hold back the carriage so it wouldn't push the horses right to their knees or run right over them or just push them aside & careen on down the hill at an awful rate to suffer a fearful fate!

106. MY GRANDFATHER USED TO TELL THE STORY, THAT HE WAS WITNESSING TO & DEALING WITH THIS CARRIAGE OR WAGON DRIVER MANY TIMES but he always put off receiving Christ. He came to his church & heard my Grandfather preach but he said, "That's not for me, not now, later! I wanna have my fun first! I'm gonna have my fling & I'm gonna enjoy this World while I'm still here. Then when I'm old & ready to die, then I'll accept Christ & get saved & that way I'll have the best of both Worlds! I'll have fun here & then get saved & go to Heaven!"

107. WELL, HE DIDN'T GROW OLD & DIE ON A SICKBED AS HE THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO DO. Instead of that, right in his prime, just a few days later after the last time my Grandfather preached to him & dealt with him he was on a downgrade & something happened to the brakes & the wagon careened down the hill & crashed & he was fatally injured & rushed to the hospital!

108. MY GRANDFATHER RUSHED TO HIS BEDSIDE TO TALK TO HIM TO TRY TO GET HIM IN AT THE LAST MINUTE like he'd always said he was going to do, but he was in a delirium or an unconscious state & he was moaning & groaning in his unconsciousness. He was crying out saying, "I'm on the downgrade & I can't find the brake! I'm on the downgrade & I can't find the brake!" And you're going to be on the downgrade & you're not going to be able to find the brake because it's too late!

109. YOU WENT TOO FAR‚ YOU TOOK TOO BIG A CHANCE! YOU WAITED TOO LONG & THE TIME OF YOUR REPENTANCE IS PAST! "His Spirit will not always strive with man!" It'll be too late for you & you'll be gone! Too late! Too late to cry out for salvation! My Grandfather couldn't even get through to him, he didn't even hear him. All he was saying in his delirium was, "I'm on the downgrade & I can't find the brake!" It was too late‚ his whole life was on the downgrade! He had a chance to find the brake all of his life but he just didn't even try to. And when finally he saw he was rushing to his destruction, "I'm gonna crash!"—he tried to find the brake & it was too late!

110. IS THAT WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN TO YOU? Are you gonna wait around 'til the last minute & rush off in a big hurry & discover you've waited too long, you're too late, you're on the downgrade‚ you can't find the brake? You've caught the wrong train, the wrong plane‚ the wrong ship & you're headed to the wrong destination, you're going to Hell instead of Heaven because you put it off too long! "His Spirit will not always strive with man!"

111. YOU'RE GONNA PASS THE POINT OF NO RETURN! You're gonna reject Jesus Christ for the last time, you're gonna put off & postpone & procrastinate for the last time until you have become so darkened in your understanding, so alienated, separated from the life & salvation of God that you're past feeling, don't even feel like it any more! You don't even believe in it anymore! You sneer & scoff & reject it for the last time. Having been often reproved you've hardened your neck until there's suddenly nothing left for you but to be suddenly destroyed & that without remedy!

112. LET ME TELL YOU, IT CAN HAPPEN TO CHRISTIANS‚ TOO! Not that you're going to be lost, but the Work that God's been trying to get you to do for years, you backsliders, you disobedient, you rebellious‚ you selfish & wayward who have gone your own way for years now. You went back from the field, you went back from the plow, you went back from His Work, & you go on in your selfish easy living. Well, it doesn't always become easy because the way of the transgressor is hard. (Pr.13:15)

113. A LOT OF OUR BACKSLIDERS WENT BACK HOME & DISCOVERED THAT IT WAS A LOT HARDER THAN IT USED TO BE & a lot harder than you expected it to be & had nothing but trouble. I was just calling Maria's attention the other day to some of the FN News how that nearly all of the serious sicknesses & serious accidents & serious diseases … are back on the home field, back in North America or Europe.

114. —CHILDREN NO DOUBT, OF BACKSLIDERS OR THE DISOBEDIENT who never did even go in the first place when they should have gone to the field, & even worse, those who went to the field & were there & then chickened out & left the plow, went back home! Lazy loafers who didn't want to really work as hard as they should have been willing to do & really trust God & live by faith as they were expected to do & really work on their Mail Ministry & work on their FFing & work on their provisioning & whatever their ministry & means of support—the 7 Supporters.

115. YOU WEREN'T WILLING TO REALLY WORK & REALLY BE DILIGENT, WELL-SERVING SERVANTS OF THE LORD‚ so God could never have said to you, "Well done thou good & faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!" All He can say to you is, "You poor & unfaithful servant, you never did get it done & you're going to enter into everlasting shame & contempt even though saved!"—Because of your failure & your disobedience‚ your rebelliousness, your laziness, your waywardness & your backsliding!

116. YOU PUT OFF OBEYING GOD TOO LONG, & LET ME TELL YA', ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'RE GOING TO FIND OUT IT'S TOO LATE! The time for your repentance to return to His Work has passed & you too have become darkened in your understanding, alienated from the life of God, past feeling, often reproved but hardened your neck, there's nothing left for you but to be suddenly destroyed & that without remedy—at least destroyed in this life … & barely saved by the skin of your teeth, barely making it in with all of your works burned—wood, hay & stubble—nothing lasting that you did. No real service for the Lord, no real genuine witnessing, litnessing & soul-winning.

117. YOU JUST WENT HOME & LAZILY LOAFED OFF THE JOB THAT GOD GAVE YOU & got yourself some other kind of a job thinking it was going to be easier. You're gonna find out it's gonna be harder‚ things are going to be tougher & get tougher & tougher! "For the way of the transgressor is hard," let me tell ya‚ & you will find it harder & harder & your heart harder & harder, your conscience harder & harder & your neck stiffer & harder until there is nothing left for you but to be suddenly destroyed & that without remedy!

118. YOU'LL ENTER INTO HEAVEN WITH SHAME & CONTEMPT & NO REWARD BECAUSE YOU FAILED GOD, you disobeyed, you backslid, you rebelled against His Will & you failed to get the job done. (Da.12:2) You failed to do what you were supposed to do, & the rest of us in Heaven are going to be ashamed of you & you're going to be held by us in contempt, to think you could have been such an unfaithful servant. Your deeds & works are going to be burned because they were no good, they were not what God wanted you to do. No matter how good you thought they were & how good you tried to be. (1Co.3:12-15)

119. YOU WEREN'T WHAT GOD WANTED YOU TO BE & YOU DIDN'T DO WHAT GOD WANTED YOU TO DO‚ & let me tell you, when you finally see what's happening in this horrible Endtime of this World, you may feel like you want to at the last minute repent, & find out you're too late! You may not even feel like it anymore. You may be too hard, too darkened, too alienated & past feeling.

120. IT MAY BE TOO LATE & YOU'LL FIND OUT THAT YOU WAITED TOO LONG & you're too late & you wound up on the wrong plane‚ the wrong train, the wrong fate, not what you expected, & God had to cut you off & send you maybe out in the boonies somewhere or down in the basement where you belong for your failure & your disobedience & your rebelliousness & your backsliding & your neglect & your laziness & slothfulness & refusal to do the Will & Work of God! May God yet have mercy on you!

121. MAY GOD STILL LEAD YOU TO REPENTANCE EVEN THROUGH THIS, MAYBE HIS LAST CALL for you to return to His Service, to repent & renew your first works, return to your First Love, get hot again for the Lord! (Re.2:4,5) Go back to the field! Witness! Litness! FF! Win souls! Do what you can before it's too late & you have to enter into Heaven a failure, hanging your head in shame & in contempt before the rest of us because you failed God & you didn't help when you were needed! You didn't even support missionaries when they needed it & suddenly you find you've come to your end & it's too late to help out anymore.

122. IT'S TOO LATE TO REPENT! It's too late to go back to the field! It's too late to live for the Lord! Your time is up! The Great Reaper has come & He knocks at your door & He comes in & finds you totally unprepared for that long journey, not ready, unrepentant—or repentant too late. Let me tell you, that's gonna be a sad day for a lot of Christians, even saved Christians, when either Death comes or Jesus comes.

123. DON'T COUNT ON THINKING THAT YOU'RE YOUNG ENOUGH‚ YOU'LL BE ABLE TO WAIT TILL THE LORD COMES, or close to it, or the Tribulation, to get saved. You may not live that long! God may become so fed up & disgusted with you & sick of you as a dandy bad example, a poor example to others‚ a stumbling stone to little ones, your own children even & perhaps your wife or husband, that He has to … get you out of the way!

124. YOU'RE ENCUMBERING THE GROUND, FRUITLESS, & He's wasting time to work on you anymore & He can't even dung you anymore or dig round you anymore! (Lk.13:6–9) You still don't respond! You still stand there lifeless & fruitless & motionless & without any works to produce real fruit. Nothing but dead works that are fruitless, dead branches‚ fruitless & only fit to be cut off & cast into the fire & burned because you failed God & you went back & disobeyed & you refused to repent & refused to serve Him!

125. LET ME TELL YOU, YOUR NATIONS, YOUR CONTINENTS ARE GOING TO BE CAST INTO THE FIRE & BURNED VERY SOON! North America & Europe are going to suffer the fires of Hell because that's what they chose & that's what you chose!—Instead of following God to the far ends of the Earth, to the end of the World to go into all of the World & preach the Gospel to every creature!

126. YOU SAID, "THAT'S TOO MUCH TO ASK! THAT'S TOO GREAT A PRICE TO PAY! That's too far to go! That's too hard! It's too tough on the field, it's too dangerous‚ too much sickness‚ disease‚ demon-possessed people & hardship conditions & sacrifice & privation! It's just too hard, I can't take it! I don't want my children to have to go through it. I'm gonna take'm back home & get out of this mess!"

127. YOU MAY FIND THAT YOU JUST JUMPED FROM THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE‚ into a worse mess than you ever got into, as most of our backsliders have found out. As someone visiting back there recently said, "They all seemed to be having a very hard time & just barely able to make ends meet, hardly able to keep their heads above water economically‚ financially & having all kinds of sickness & accidents & diseases."—The chastisements of God trying to get'm to repent & return & do their first works but still refusing, growing darker in their understanding every day, harder in their hearts, more alienated from God until they're so hard they're past feeling.

128. THEIR NECKS ARE SO HARD THEY'RE STIFF & REBELLIOUS & THEY HAVE REFUSED TO REPENT, refused to return to the center of God's Will. Absolutely rejected the Will of God till there's nothing left for them but to … get them out of the way of others who might stumble over them.

129. IS THAT YOU? MAY GOD STILL HAVE MERCY ON YOU IF IT'S POSSIBLE! Let's hope you haven't gone too far. Let's hope you haven't waited too long. Let's hope you're not too late. "Today if you will hear His Voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation!"—Don't provoke God to anger‚ don't aggravate Him to have to chastise you & judge you. … (He.3:7,8)

130. REPENT TODAY WHILE THERE IS YET TIME! "Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" (Mt.3:2) Let me tell you, it's getting closer every day & this day could be your last day! If you reject God's will for the last time today & He has no more time for you, no more mercy for you, He's not going to give you another chance, it's too late! …

131. IS THAT YOU? MAY GOD HELP YOU NOT TO BE TOO LATE & in such a rush at the last minute that you miss the boat, you miss the plane or you get on the wrong train or you find you're going the wrong direction, instead of into the Will of God, into the very fires of Hell! Even my voice calling to you now is—if you'll hear it—one more chance, maybe your last chance to hear it & heed it & receive it! Accept what I'm saying & repent of your wicked ways! Turn to the Lord!

132. IF TODAY YOU'LL HEAR HIS VOICE‚ LET THE WICKED FORSAKE HIS WAY & let him turn to the Lord & repent of your ways, get back to God & back to His will, & if you will really truly repent & come back to the Lord & His Will, He will abundantly pardon you. (Is.55:7) He'll forgive you. He'll forget all your past sins & all your mistakes & all of your shortcomings & all of your failures. (Heb.8:12)

133. HE'LL ONLY REMEMBER THE GOOD THINGS YOU'RE DOING TODAY FOR HIM! He'll remember your sins against you no more. He'll only think about the good that you're doing now & He'll only give you credit & reward for what you're doing now if you'll just come back & just repeat your first works, just repent, ask Him to forgive you, come back again & return to the field or go South & do the best you can to serve the Lord!

134. EVEN IF IT KILLS YOU IT'D BE BETTER TO DIE SERVING GOD, die for something than to stay back home there & live for nothin'!—Die on the field in the Will of God than live at home out of His Will suffering His chastisements & His judgements & His eventual destruction.

135. WHERE ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU? WHAT'S YOUR CONDITION? Are you one of those who waits till the last minute & is gonna be too late & rush until you kill yourself? Or wait till you find you're going the wrong direction & find out that you're even separated from your loved ones & you're carried away by the Death Angel or the Judgement Angel of God to a place of punishment if you put off Salvation too long, or a place of remorse & shame if you simply, as a Christian even, put off His Will too long?

136. YOU'RE CUT OFF EVEN OUT OF THIS LIFE & AWAY FROM YOUR LOVED ONES only to face God & His Son Jesus & the Angels of God & the Saints of God in that Heavenly place thankful even that you got there but almost ashamed to be there suffering their contempt because of your contemptuous behaviour, your pitiful failure, your shameful conduct. What'll it be with you?

137. WHERE ARE YOU AT TODAY? ARE YOU WHERE YOU BELONG?—In the center of God's Will on the field of His choice? Or have you backslidden far out of the Will of God, far from the center of His Will‚ the place of your choice instead, with nothing but a fearful looking forward to His Judgement & His destruction or even execution. (He.10:27) May God have mercy on you!

138. I HOPE THIS ISN'T YOUR LAST CALL, BUT IT COULD BE! Are you gonna heed it? Are you listening? Are you repenting? Are you confessing? Are you crying out to God for His mercy to forgive you? Are you repenting? Are you begging God to give you a little more time to get back into the center of His Will? My God, I think I'd swim across that gulf or that ocean & drown trying rather than to stay there out of the Will of God in a country that's gonna be destroyed anyhow! Might as well die trying as to go back & be sure of dying! What'll it be with you?

139. EVEN YOUR FATE ON THIS EARTH IS NOT HALF OF THE PUNISHMENT OR HALF OF THE SHAME, remorse, contempt, the lack of reward, the feeling of failure that you're going to suffer even if you're saved & get to Heaven. It's nothing. The punishments & chastisements of God on this Earth & even the final destruction of this Earth is going to be nothing to the shame & reproach & contempt & feeling of failure you're gonna have even if you make it to Heaven just by being saved but having failed God.

140. I THINK THERE'S GONNA BE SOME TEARS IN HEAVEN, THAT'S FOR SURE! Well, God in His mercy said He's gonna wipe'm away & then there'll be no pain, no death‚ no sorrow. (Re.21:4) So God's gonna have to somehow remove it, even if we don't know how long it's gonna take. It may be quite awhile before you get over it & before you recover from what you failed to do & the sense of awful shame & remorse & the contempt of others until finally God finds it in His heart to forgive you‚ & others find it in their hearts to forgive you through His Love. It may take awhile.

141. WHO KNOWS, IT MIGHT TAKE A THOUSAND YEARS OF THE MILLENNIUM! Or it may take the beginning of Eternity before He'll be able to wipe those tears away & you'll feel no more pain or sorrow over your failure & your disobedience, your rebelliousness, your hardness‚ your waywardness & backsliding.

142. WHY DON'T YOU REPENT RIGHT NOW? Why don't you ask Jesus to forgive you right now? Why don't you cry out to God for mercy, shed some tears, get down on your knees & beg God to forgive you, if He'll just give you a little more time. Vow to God you'll get out somehow, you'll go back to His Will somehow! You'll obey Him somehow if He'll just make it possible & give you time!

143. CRY OUT TO GOD! PLEAD WITH GOD! BEG HIM TO FORGIVE YOU, TRULY REPENT! Really turn around & start back the right direction from your waywardness & your backsliding & your rebelliousness & your disobedience. Turn around & go God's way & ask Him to give you a little more time, if it be possible, to get back into His Will with your mate & your family, if possible. Or even if you have to leave'm behind.

144. FOR GOD'S SAKE, FORSAKE ALL!—Even father & mother, brother or sister, husband, wife‚ houses & land, even children!—To return to the Lord & His Will rather than have your life completely lost & wasted & end in nothing but failure, even if you're saved by the skin of your teeth. You manage to barely squeak into Heaven just because you did get saved but you've been a failure almost ever since or you went back & failed later.

145. MAY GOD HELP YOU & HAVE MERCY ON YOU & MAY HE HELP YOU TO REPENT RIGHT NOW! Cry out to God & ask Him to forgive you right this minute! Beg God to receive you back into the Father's House again. Beg Him to let you stick your feet under His table again‚ the safety & security of the Salvation of the Kingdom of God, His House, the Father's House. Return home!—To the Family, to the Lord & to His Will & His Work so that you won't have to enter Heaven ashamed & in contempt in your contemptible condition.

146. MY GOD! DO IT NOW! DON'T WAIT ANOTHER MOMENT! DON'T WAIT ANOTHER SECOND! Stop right now at the end of this Letter & drop to your knees & raise your hands to God in prayer & tears & beg Him to forgive you & deliver you & help you get back into His Will. If you really mean it, let me tell ya', if it's genuine & sincere & true repentance, He will forgive you & He will forget your past sins & He will help you get back into His Will. I promise you because God's Word promises it!

147. HE SAID HE WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON & HE'LL HELP YOU DO AGAIN YOUR FIRST WORKS if you'll get back on fire for Him out of your lethargy & coldness & lukewarmness. He says He would you were hot or cold, but because you're lukewarm you make Him sick at His stomach! He wants to vomit you up, throw you up, spew you out of His Mouth! (Re.3:15,16) You lukewarm Christians, you sickening Family Members backslidden out of the Will of God make God sick at His stomach! He'd rather you were a cold, hard sinner, there's more hope for you, if you can't be a red-hot on-fire witnessing Christian missionary serving the Lord!

148. HE'D RATHER YOU BE HOT OR COLD RATHER THAN A LUKEWARM SICKENING STOMACH–TURNING, NAUSEATING, BACKSLIDDEN, LUKEWARM CHRISTIAN who is merely an easy believer & living an easy life, or trying to, but finding out it's harder than you expected! Just rocking along‚ thankful you're saved even if you didn't do the Will of God, even if you disobeyed Him & backslid & didn't support the Family, didn't support a missionary, didn't help, failed God, failed His Work, failed His Will‚ failed Him, failed us, failed the lost, failed those you could have saved & they went to Hell instead, & your hands on the other side are going to be dripping with their blood! (Ez.3:18)

149. GOD'S GOING TO HOLD YOU RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM! He is gonna hold your soul responsible for not delivering your soul to them by warning them, & their blood's gonna be on your hands. Their fate's gonna be on your hands. You're probably gonna be allowed to see them squirm & writhe in the torture & torments of Hell, the ones that you failed to give the Gospel of His Love! You failed to reach'm with your witness. You failed & were ashamed to litness, were afraid, halfhearted, weak & cowardly, you ran!

150. YOU DISAPPOINTED GOD LIKE SAUL, LIKE JUDAS, & YOU RAN WHEN THE GOING GOT TOUGH! You wouldn't listen to God. You wouldn't obey His Prophet! You wouldn't do His Will. You wouldn't follow the Lord & His Family but you went your own rebellious hardhearted disobedient backslidden way until God finally had to cut you off when it was too late to repent & too late to get back, too late to return to His Will‚ too late to return to the field.

151. TOO LATE TO DO THE WILL OF GOD & THE WORK OF GOD! Too late to litness, witness & win souls. Too late to serve the Lord. Too late for "well done thou good & faithful servant‚ enter into the joy of thy Lord!" Too late to enter into anything but everlasting shame & contempt for your disobedience, rebelliousness, failure & backsliding!

152. MAY GOD HELP YOU TO HEAR THIS LAST CALL, WHICH COULD BE YOUR LAST CALL! IT COULD BE MY LAST CALL TO YOU! You may never hear from me again. You may never get another Magazine. You may never read another Letter. You may have heard the call to repentance for the last time, & if you reject it this time you are without excuse! There is no more looking forward to anything but His judgement & His punishment & His cutting off & destruction … because you had your chance. God doesn't owe you another one.

153. GOD DOESN'T OWE YOU ANY MORE TIME! Your time is always ready. (Jn.7:6) You rejected, you failed, you refused & God doesn't owe you another minute! Not another hour! Not another day! This day could be your last because if you refuse right now‚ God doesn't owe you another chance, another opportunity at life & salvation & service to Him. If you refuse this one right now, God doesn't owe you another one.

154. … He could cut you off in an instant! A roof could fall in on you, your whole World could collapse with you & you could sink into the abyss of destruction only to face the Other Side—even if saved—with shame! Only to face others There with shame & suffer their contempt.

155. TOO LATE TO SERVE THE LORD! TOO LATE! You waited too long & you were in too big a hurry at the last minute, & you find that you're going the wrong direction, you're cut off, separated‚ & your chance to have really served the Lord here & now is gone forever! The souls you might have litnessed & witnessed to or won are gone forever! You didn't deliver your soul. Their blood's on your hands & you will suffer the remorse of it in the World to come. You may be compelled to witness their sorrows, their sufferings, their damnation, their loss because of your failure.

156. BUT MAY GOD HELP YOU TO HEED THIS CALL RIGHT THIS MINUTE OR IT MAY BE YOUR LAST! God help you! God have mercy on you! God help you to do it right now in Jesus' name! Or else it may be too late. In Jesus' name, amen.

157. IF YOU WAIT TILL THE LAST MINUTE YOU MAY FIND YOU'RE TOO LATE, THAT YOU'VE CAUGHT A PLANE TO HELL INSTEAD OF HEAVEN! You may be like the people who were in that plane that crashed just as it was taking off. They thought they were going on a beautiful holiday vacation, but they caught a flight to Hell & not to Heaven! They're spending their vacation in Hell right now because they waited too long.

158. IF YOU'RE A LOST SINNER & YOU'VE PUT OFF RECEIVING CHRIST TOO LONG, YOUR NEXT FLIGHT MAY CRASH when it lands & you'll find out that it's landed you in Hell instead of the Heaven you were hoping & expecting because you waited too long, too late‚ & you caught the wrong plane & it was your last flight!—Flight to Hell instead of Heaven!

159. REPENT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, LEST YOU FIND YOU HAVE LANDED IN HELL INSTEAD OF HEAVEN or in shame & contempt instead of glorious reward & praise of the Lord! Do it now! Don't wait another moment! Cry out to God right this minute & ask God to forgive you & to help you get back to His Will, or help you to receive Him perhaps the first time, that you might be saved. I hope you do. May God help you to. I'm praying for you.

160. MAY THE LORD HELP YOU TO REPENT & BE SAVED OR HAVE YOUR LIFE SAVED FOR HIS SERVICE EVEN YET!—Your family saved, your children saved from the holocaust. Go now! Get out now! Do it quick before it's too late! I think it's coming very soon. May God help you to obey, in Jesus' name. Amen!—Where there's life, there's hope! It's not too late if you'll come now! "Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out"! (Jn.6:37)

161. YOU'VE HEARD HIS VOICE‚ HE'S CALLING YOU AGAIN RIGHT NOW, PERHAPS THE LAST TIME, & it's not too late if you'll come now! He loves you, He wants you!—But this may be your last chance!—Will you take it?—Or lose it forever! He's done His part‚ I've done my part—we've warned you again & again. Is this your last time?—Will tomorrow be too late?—It's up to you! Will you do it now!—Or be too late! GHU! WLY! Please do it now!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family