—God's Little Tricks!

DFO 1519 13/5/83

1. IF THE LORD HAD SHOWN ME THAT THE ATOMIC WAR WASN'T GOING TO BE SO SOON & I HADN'T THOUGHT IT WAS SO URGENT, I NEVER WOULD HAVE RUSHED THROUGH THIS PROPHECY SERIES & GOTTEN THEM OUT TO THE FAMILY SO SOON! So the Lord not showing me until now sure did the trick! It sure made me push it through! And I guess they need it! Now they're really going to be confused! Actually, that's what I used to teach, that the Antichrist is going to come to power by peace‚ rather than by war. It says he'll come in by peace & by flattery & by clever deceit. (Dan.11:21,24) I don't know what made me change my mind‚ because there're so many Scriptures on it! I think it was because it looked like the War was going to come first, so I tried to make my interpretations fit. (Maria: "Thank God for the Good" was a good Letter to get out‚ because that sort of explains how you see more as you go on.) (No.1492)

2. LOOK HOW THE LORD WAITED UNTIL I WAS ALMOST THROUGH WITH THE WHOLE SERIES! I mean, I've only got about one more GN to do on this Series! I've just come to the end & then He shows me! He tricked me! The Lord is really tricky! Sometimes He's an Old Rascal, He really tricks me into doing things! Look what He did to me on that Comet business & on the "40 Days" & "The Great Escape" & a few other things that didn't happen!—Just to make me get on the move, & the Family on the move! And now that He got most of us safely down in the South & I'm almost done with the Series, now He lets me know not to worry too much about the War being too soon!—Ha!

3. LORD FORGIVE ME, BUT IT SEEMS THAT'S NOT EXACTLY FAIR TO FOOL US LIKE THAT, BUT I GUESS HE FIGURES IF HE HAS TO DO THAT TO GET US OUT, THEN ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE & WAR! Ha! (Maria: It sure got us speeded up on everything & got us just working on the major most important things & really working hard!) That "Red Alert" really put us on the move‚ really jerked us up! (No.1469) I've done most of the Series since then, otherwise I probably would have loafed along & piddled along & figured, "Why hurry? It's not going to be for a long time." I could have taken a year getting out that Series at the rate of two GNs a month, 128 pages, instead of two books a month of over 500 pages! I've really been zippin' through!—And the other Teams have really really learned how to run! "So that he that runneth may read" or "he that readeth may run!" (Hab.2:2) I've forgotten which it is! I've been doing both—running & reading‚ & reading & running, & I think everybody else has too!

4. BOY OH BOY! WHAT A TRICK FOR THE LORD TO PLAY ON ME! Well, it wasn't really His fault, because I used to teach that the war came later! He just let me get into the idea that it looked like the War was going to happen first, so I guess you'd say I had to make the prophecies fit the events, rather than make the events fit the prophecies! I've got to send word to Apollos to do some research on that right away & find me everything he can in the Scriptures & the Letters that may indicate that the Antichrist is going to come to power by peace & the Covenant, rather than by War. And that the War follows the breaking of the Covenant—either immediately precedes it or simultaneously—but anyhow, that the War occurs somewhere around the breaking of the Covenant, rather than before the making of it.—That the making comes before the breaking, & the peace before War!

5. YOU KNOW, IT'S NOT EASY TO CONFESS YOU'VE BEEN WRONG, BUT IT'S A LOT EASIER THAN STAYING WRONG TO TRY TO SUPPORT A FALSE POSITION! It's easier to back down than to go off the deep end when you find out you're wrong. I did that on the Jews, & boy, that was a big subject! That was a monumental switch, the complete opposite! I used to be all lovey-dovey with the Jews & think they were the most, God's pets! So you can see how much I've changed, to discover they're the Devil's pests instead of God's pets! That was quite a switcheroo, huh?

6. WELL, PEOPLE MAY THINK I'M CRAZY, & OF COURSE A LOT OF THEM ALREADY DO, BUT I'D RATHER CONFESS I'M WRONG, EVEN IF I'M CRAZY, THAN TRY TO PERSIST ON A TACK THAT JUST ISN'T SO! I'm always worrying about how many people are going to lose confidence in me & wonder how many other things I've been teaching them might be a mistake too. (Maria: Honey‚ I think that was pretty well explained in "Thank God for the Good!") Like dear Jonah felt after the Lord cancelled His judgement.—I bet a lot of people thought he was wrong too! (Maria: Like you said, it's God's reputation that's at stake, & if He wants to make it look like He's wrong, or His Prophet's wrong, then that's up to Him!)

7. WELL, HE SURELY HAD ME FOOLED! It sure looked to me like the War was coming first! And if He let me think that just to get this whole Prophecy Series out in such a big hurry‚ that shows He's smarter & more clever than I am! Because He knows good & well I never would have done it this fast except under pressure! It proved how fast I could do it! Now that I've got it almost done & I'm on the home stretch, in sight of the wire, now that I've almost reached the deadline, now He tells me, "Don't worry! Now that you've almost finished the Series, you can relax! It's not going to happen as soon as you thought!" So there goes another of my theories all shot full of holes! I wonder how many people we're going to lose over that one? (Maria: Nobody! They're going to be really happy, jumping up & down for joy!)

8. WELL‚ I CAN'T HELP IT, IT JUST HAPPENED, THAT'S ALL! THE LORD DID IT! It just came in a flash, one of those flashes of real revelation as I was reading those last couple of Chapters on Babylon. (Rev.17 & 18) The conviction kept coming so strong that that was the War, & it couldn't happen until after the Antichrist came to power! And I kept fighting it & kept trying to push it away, but it wouldn't go away! And I thought, "Oh my Lord, how can I confess now that I've gotta change all that?" Well, I'm not going to go back & rewrite all those Letters. In fact, in a lot of those lectures, that's what I was saying! Then I went back & edited them afterwards & tried to change it, because I kept saying that it wasn't until after the Antichrist came to power. I tried to change several places in the last two Letters on Babylon, where I said as plain as day that the Atom War was going to come to destroy Babylon after the Antichrist came to power.

9. IT SURE IS EMBARRASSING WHEN YOU'RE WRONG! I mean, it really is humiliating to find out that you made a mistake, but it certainly is an embarrassing humiliating relief to discover we have a little more time!—TTL! It sure is embarrassing & humiliating to confess your mistakes, but it sure is better than sticking to'm! It's the way of the transgressor that's hard. (Pr.13:15) So PTL! Thank God!

10. IF IT GIVES US 3–1/2 MORE YEARS OF PEACE, IT'S WORTH IT!—And it might even be more than that! If the Antichrist doesn't break the Covenant till 1989, then that backs up the making of it to about 1985 or '86‚ which could give us another 5 or 6 years!—D.V.! But it certainly looks to me like it's going to have to come soon. The Covenant is going to have to bring peace very soon or the War is going to come first! So he'd better hurry up & be quick about it if he's going to support my new theory.—Ha!

11. IT'S REALLY QUITE EMBARRASSING & HUMBLING TO HAVE THE LORD FAIL TO SUPPORT SOME OF YOUR PET THEORIES‚ DOCTRINES OR INTERPRETATIONS, to have the Lord suddenly knock it for a loop with the facts or the truth, & you have to turn around & change your whole outlook & plans! You feel like, "How come, Lord? What's the big idea? How come You didn't support my interpretation? How come You didn't confirm my doctrine? How come You let me go out on a limb like that & then sawed it off?—Let me fall down to the ground with a big thud to wake me up when I'd gone peacefully to sleep on my interpretations & had made everything fit so nicely all around it!"—Or thought I had‚ or tried to! But that's what woke me up, that some of the things just didn't fit! They weren't necessarily so.

12. SO THEN I HAD TO START DIGGING TO FIND OUT WHAT WAS WRONG—& I SOON FOUND OUT! Now I'm back at square one where I used to be & what I taught for years, that the Antichrist was going to arise first by peace & the Pact, & the War is going to come later when he breaks it. Hey, right there in Daniel 9:27 he breaks the Pact & there's a flood of desolations! That's another Scripture! Boy, I wonder how many Scriptures Apollos can find, & Letter references that support that interpretation, my old theory‚ that he comes to power through peace rather than War!

13. HOW FAR BACK DID I GO ASTRAY? How long ago was it that I went wrong & began to teach that the War was going to come first? (Maria: Well, it's been pretty recently.) I think it's only been within the last two or three years when it looked like the War was going to come so soon & it couldn't wait for the Peace Pact or the Antichrist. Therefore I had to believe that it looked like he was going to come to power through War, & then settle the War with the Peace Pact. But that's not very logical.

14. IF HE WINS THE WAR, WHO NEEDS A PEACE PACT? Peace pacts & treaties & covenants are made to make peace & to prevent wars—you don't need'm after you've won. Then you can do as you please & make the other guy come to heel & toe the mark. You can force it on him. You only have ceasefires & truces & treaties & peace pacts to try to prevent wars or stop wars or bring peace politically rather than militarily. And now it looks to me like that's exactly what's gotta happen, & of course that's the only thing that could prevent the War, but that could do it!—And that's all that could do it!

15. WE'VE BEEN PRAYING FOR SOME KIND OF A MIRACLE THAT WOULD POSTPONE THE WAR, SO THE LORD DID IT! ALL HE HAD TO DO TO STOP THE WAR WAS CHANGE MY MIND!!—Ha! That was an easy way to do it! (Maria: Well, not so easy for you, I guess.) No, it's never easy to confess you're wrong & you've made a mistake, especially that you've taught people something wrong. I guess I'm going to be least in the Kingdom of God. Like Jesus said, "He that breaks the least of one of these commandments & shall teach men so‚ shall be least in the Kingdom of God!" (Mt.5:19) (Maria: But you haven't broken any commandments!) Well, I just got screwed up on my interpretation. No wonder the Lord said "seek not to be teachers or many masters, for unto you is the greater condemnation!" (Jam.3:1) When you start trying to teach other people something, you really stick your neck out! The Lord's apt to teach you a few things, & it's not always easy!

16. WELL ANYHOW, I TRIED! I DID MY BEST! If they want to throw me over & throw me out for making one mistake after all the good things & right things I've taught'm‚ that's up to them. (Maria: I don't think there's any danger of that, Honey!) I mean, they've still got the other 99% that's still right. Of course, maybe they'll question that too. But it's all in the Bible plain as day! The only thing I couldn't really prove was that the War was going to come first—that was my opinion, my theory—& the reason I couldn't prove it was, it wasn't so! I couldn't really find any Scriptures to back it up.

17. SURELY I DIDN'T TEACH THAT BECAUSE I WANTED IT TO HAPPEN FIRST! I must say, I did want to scare those damned Americans & Europeans out of the North, & that was sure a good convenient way of doing it‚ & it sure worked!—Ha! And if any of'm that are now on the mission field are going to be mad at me because I scared'm out prematurely, well, that's tough! I guess they'll just have to be a missionary a little sooner than they expected! (Maria: We'll probably have a few going back to raise some more home support!) I wouldn't be surprised if we suddenly have a lot of furloughs! (Maria: A lot of'm just got out by the skin of their teeth, they thought, & they didn't get any home support! And they've been struggling to make it!)

18. WELL, PTL! I WOULD STILL BE THANKFUL THAT I'D GOTTEN OUT, IF I WERE THEY! A lot of them have gotten to the field & found out how wonderful it is & how much better it is than they thought‚ & I believe a lot of them are going to stay!—They're so thankful & glad to be out! I really think most of them won't want to go home. It's pretty bad back home, let me tell you! Good night, it's already bad back there! (Maria: Their home countries are taking their children away & the financial state is getting so bad & we're having bad publicity, there's all kinds of horrible things going on!) Good night, who wants to go back to the Pit? It's really bad! Who wants to go back & live in Babylon, even if her judgements are temporarily postponed? I'd still rather be out here now & get in early on the winning side‚ than to be still hobnobbin' with a bunch of losers! The U.S. is now a born loser, born to lose! It's not going to be that much longer, either.

19. WHAT IF THEY'VE ALREADY SECRETLY MADE THE PACT? You know how the Jews are always up to something! They may just be whippin' up the War scare to make the people ready to receive it! Maybe it's already been made secretly. And if the Antichrist is their man‚ as I believe he is, he's already around somewhere working on it. So it's already done as far as they're concerned, they've just got to convince the World that it has to be done to save the World from War. So who knows? Maybe it's already been made, or about to be made. That's always been a sort of a question‚ or at least it used to be when I used to teach this, as to whether we would know when the Pact was signed, that first it might be a secret Covenant, secret diplomacy. They've had a lot of that throughout history, treaties & pacts that were made secretly between governments without the rest of the World ever knowing anything about it until too late.

20. BUT IT LOOKS TO ME LIKE THIS ONE WOULD HAVE TO BE PUBLIC! How are you ever going to get the whole World to agree to peace‚ including the Capitalists & the Communists, the Jews & the Arabs, unless the whole World knows about it? I mean, that would be an Earth-shaking event, a real World-shocking occasion when the Jews agree to share Jerusalem & make peace with the Arabs, & the U.S. agrees to make peace with the Communists & postpone the War! Good night, certainly everybody would know it! That kind of a Peace Pact would be sensational, World news! Everybody would have to know it! So I don't see how that Pact could possibly be kept a secret, do you? Which means that if the Pact is going to made publicly, it sure looks like the Antichrist would appear, since he's the author of the Pact as well as the following Confusion later when he breaks it.

21. I THINK GRANDMOTHER'S "WARNING PROPHECY" WAS ONE THING THAT MADE ME THINK THE WAR WAS COMING SOON, SINCE IT SAID THE GREAT CONFUSION WAS ALMOST UPON US! (No.655) But the way God looks at things & the way He talks in His Word, He had the Early Church practically convinced that He was coming back any minute, that Jesus was going to return almost any time, but it has still been nearly 2,000 years! So as far as God's concerned‚ it doesn't matter whether the Great Confusion, if that's the Atomic War, is five years away or ten years away, it's all the same thing to God. As far as He's concerned, it's still almost upon us! But we with our little finite minds, we think there's a great deal of difference between five & ten years, & "almost upon us" sounds like tomorrow, when it's already been nearly 20 years since she got that prophecy! So it wasn't almost upon us as much as we thought, even if it happened now! So what's another five years?

22. I KNEW I WAS STICKING MY NECK OUT TO GET OUT THIS PROPHECY SERIES & GET IT ALL DOWN IN BLACK-&-WHITE where they could catch me if they could & ferret out all my little mistakes & seeming contradictions—which they have! Which is good, thank the Lord for it! For if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't have discovered this mistake! Thank God at least this is one I discovered before they did! So at least I get credit for that. Ha! They can't brag about how they caught me in a mistake—I caught myself!—Or God caught me! TTL! At least I'm going to correct it, they ought to give me credit for that! Ha! It's not everybody that confesses their mistakes. Maybe it's because it's not everybody that makes so many of them. Like my Grandfather said, "Men of force are men of faults!—And when they make a mistake, they make a big one!"

23. SO THANK GOD, AT LEAST IT'S A RELIEF TO MAKE A MISTAKE LIKE THAT! Thank God it was a mistake! Like I said about the Tribulation‚ I'd rather be prepared to go through it & then not have to, than to think I'm going to escape it & find I've landed right in the middle of it!—Like most of the churches! Better to have it & not need it, than need it & not have it! I'm glad we got prepared for the War! Boy oh boy, it sure pushed us & it got a lot of work done & a lot of people out of the North, including us, so I'm not a bit sorry!

24. EVEN IF I WAS MISTAKEN, IT DID THE TRICK & GOT THE JOB DONE THAT GOD WANTED TO DO!—Made me finish the Prophecy Series & made the Family get out of the North, & made most of us get out on the mission field where we belong! So praise God! TTL! I'm sure somebody's going to quote me that Scripture, "Let us do evil that good may come!" (Rom.3:8) "Aha‚ that's what Dad's been doing! He's been doing evil & tricking us into going to the field so he can make missionaries out of us sooner than we were planning to be!" Well, after a taste of the mission field, if they still want to go back to that slimepit, let'm go to Hell! Having put their hand to the plow & turning back, they don't deserve it! (Lk.9:62) So PTL anyhow!

25. (MARIA: SOME OF THE FAMILIES MIGHT HAVE TO GO BACK, BECAUSE THEY'RE BARELY SURVIVING ON THE MISSION FIELD, HAVING LEFT WITHOUT ANY HOME SUPPORT WHATSOEVER.) Well, at least now they know what the mission field's like & what they're getting into & what they need, & maybe having been confronted with the need, they'll get the burden & go back with much more conviction to raise support & to build a fire under those home folks! But there's always a big danger they'll get stuck there‚ so that's something they have to consider too. That's one of the risks they run in going home. Personally, if I were they, I'd take my chances on the field. I think I'd rather starve on the field than live at home!—Die for something than live for nothing! So PTL!

26. I CAN FIRE BACK AT'M THE SCRIPTURE, "ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THEM THAT LOVE THE LORD!" (Rom.8:28)—That must include a few mistakes, maybe even a few evil things. So if I was wrong but it did the job, so what? The Lord did it! The Lord let me make the mistake, He did it, so blame it on Him! Personally, I'm thankful! I'm glad we got out & I never want to go back! I love it here on the field! I love the South! I love the Tropix! I'm so glad to be here. I love these sweet humble hungry people & good humble governments that are struggling along trying to do their best in spite of the Superpowers & all their pressure. I'm glad to be here, even if they want to call it a false alarm! Maybe that'll be a good title for this, "False Alarm!" I like to be shocking!

27. I MEAN‚ THAT'S THE LAST THING PEOPLE WOULD EXPECT ME TO DO, IS CONFESS IT WAS A FALSE ALARM! But what else can I say? If the War's not coming right away, then it was a false alarm! If it took a false alarm to get us out of the house when somebody hollered "Fire!", so what? The house is about to collapse anyhow & full of devils & demons, so it's better to get out anyway! It's already on fire in the basement & it's bound to burn, so what difference does it make? I think the sooner you get out of a doomed building‚ the better! Right? If you know the building's already been condemned & might collapse any minute, who wants to stay in it? Who knows what other kind of disasters are going to befall the United States? Look at all the stuff that's already happened!—Big storms & earthquakes & volcanic eruptions! My God, what more do they want as evidence that the house is doomed, condemned, an unsafe structure! The sooner they get out, the better!—Even if it hasn't already caught fire! PTL!

28. WELL, I'M GLAD WE GOT OUT & I'M GLAD MOST OF THE FAMILY ARE NOW ON THE FIELD, SO PRAISE GOD! I'm not a bit sorry!—Even if I was wrong about the War & it doesn't happen this year! But what if I'm wrong now & the War does happen this year? We'll be mighty glad we did get out & got the job done! Well, I don't see how I could be wrong about this, there're just too many Scriptures on it, whereas I was kind of having a hard time supporting my "War Now‚ Peace Later" theory. All those Scriptures show how the Antichrist comes to power through peace & flattery rather than war, & that's what I used to teach!—Till we got the idea the War or the Great Confusion or whatever was going to come any minute! I was as bad as the pre-Trib Rapturists who have that "any moment Rapture" theory, pushing my "any moment War" theory!

29. BUT AS I WENT THROUGH THOSE SCRIPTURES AGAIN & ALL THOSE PROPHECY LETTERS & LECTURES & THE "GARDEN OF EDEN" SERIES THAT I'VE BEEN SORT OF POKIN' FUN AT & BELITTLING, THAT'S WHAT CONVINCED ME! So it must not be too bad! I'm glad I was wrong. It's a big relief to learn I was wrong. Thank God we were wrong, if it means we're going to have a little more time! TYJ! Amen! I'm not going to complain! If they want to complain about it, let'm! If they want to call me a false prophet because it was a false alarm, okay. They ought to be thanking God for it, even for the poor little prophet that makes so many mistakes! There were plenty of other prophets that made mistakes, but that didn't mean they were false prophets just because they got a little screwed–up once in awhile. Look at all the mistakes Paul made! Really nearly all of what I taught'm is right, so if I made one little mistake recently because of the looks of things, they ought to be thankful that the War's not coming so soon, if that's true. We'll wait & see. At least now we're prepared for it! TYJ! GBY! I hope you're not sorry you're a missionary already!—And I hope you stay one! Please don't go back!—You'll be sorry if you do! That'll be your mistake!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family