DO 17462/84

—A Warning to You!

1. AS FOR SOME ASPECTS OF THE MINISTRY OF THE APOSTLE PAUL, I OFTEN WONDERED ABOUT HIM, YOU KNOW HE WAS ALWAYS INSISTENT ON THE JEW FIRST, but also to the Gentile, as any typical good Jew. So he did exactly what we've done, & that's what caused all his trouble.—In every city he went to the church first, he went into the synagogue first to preach to the Jews first, & it immediately split every single one of them wide open‚ & those that followed him then got thrown out & persecuted & almost killed, & he finally got chased out of town anyhow & only left just a little nucleus behind to carry on.

2. HE SAID, "FROM HENCEFORTH I GO TO THE GENTILES," BUT INSTEAD OF THAT HE DIDN'T! (Acts 18:6) He just couldn't resist that‚ he was so Jewish! Every country he went to, he first went to the synagogue & preached there, & word had already gotten to some of them or soon followed, who he was & what he was preaching & all the trouble he had caused before. They had their FreeCOG organised then too, let me tell you, & they were sending their emissaries around notifying the synagogues to watch out for this guy, etc. And their appeal was always immediately to the local government on some excuse or pretext that he was disobeying the laws or something. If they didn't beat him up personally, they brought him before the local officials.

3. SO I OFTEN WONDER IF HE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN ANY FURTHER & HAD LESS TROUBLE IF HE HAD JUST GONE & STARTED PREACHING ON THE STREET CORNERS & IN THE PARKS OR SOMEWHERE JUST TO THE GENTILES, because they heard him gladly & received the Word with gladness, God's Word says, immediately, anon! (Acts 13:48) Why couldn't he just as well have done that & skipped those … Jews who caused him all the trouble? He probably could have gotten away with it a lot longer‚ in other words, by going to the outsiders & sinners outside of the church first, the Gentiles, & circumvented & avoided the synagogues. But he just felt like he owed it to the church people to tell them the good news first. Well, of course, many of them received it, it was usually about a 50/50 proposition—about half of them did & about half of them didn't.

4. AND OF COURSE IT WAS ALMOST ALWAYS THE RULERS OF THE SYNAGOGUE & THE CHIEF PRIEST & RABBIS & WHATNOT, THE ONES WHO WERE IN CONTROL, THE HIERARCHY, WHO REJECTED IT & REFUSED because they felt it threatened their position & their organisation, their denomination, just like they do today. There is no difference. Man hasn't changed, nor the religious organisations haven't changed, nor the jealousy & the covetousness & the spite & all the rest of it. So that's where you'll always get your trouble.

5. WHEN I HEARD THEY WERE GOING TO THOSE CHURCHES & CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITIES VIRTUALLY WORLDWIDE, I thought‚ uh oh! I realise it might be easier in some ways to approach Christians, but they actually, in some places, have been doing better with the Muslims, had less antagonism from the Muslims. The Muslims, especially nowadays seem to be wanting friends & wanting good will & good PR‚ etc.‚ & of course they don't have much, so they're really hungry.—Whereas it's hard to give the full anything, to those who are already Christians & have got their minds made up, don't confuse them with the facts. Jesus said, "He hath filled the hungry soul, but the full He hath sent empty away!" (Lk.1:53)

6. THAT'S WHAT FRED USED TO TEACH US. HE SAID, "FORGET THE CHURCHES!" He said, "I tried that for years! It didn't do any good. It just causes you more trouble than it does any good, & you get less results for the amount of effort & everything else, just because they support you!" He said, "You go out & get some rich millionaire businessman or outsider & you don't have to worry about church support, he'll support you!"—And he did!

7. FRED FISHER, THE FAMOUS MILLIONAIRE OF THE FISHER BODY WORKS OF DETROIT, & SOME OF THOSE GUYS, CHRISTIAN BUSINESSMEN & THE FULL GOSPEL BUSINESSMEN BEGAN TO SUPPORT HIM, & oh boy‚ this just infuriated the churches then! That's why they practically threw both of them out of the churches, both of those businessmen's groups, when they began getting a little independent & not so churchy anymore! So that there is quite a bit of jealousy & antagonism now between those businessmen's groups‚ the Christian Businessmen & Full Gospel Businessmen & the churches, & some of them have issued dictums & edicts against them, "Have nothing to do with these people!"—Like they have with us!

8. I THINK THE ASSEMBLIES OF GOD PRACTICALLY FORBADE THEIR PEOPLE TO GO TO THEIR MEETINGS for awhile, they had terrible friction & conflict between them!—Because the businessmen were smarter than the preachers, they weren't smart theologically but they were smarter business-wise, organisation-wise, & in meetings, they were smarter reaching businessmen, witnessing, active, all of that. I mean they were really on the ball! They were real workers, pushers instead of a bunch of church Christians sitting around in pews listening to pretty pious platitudes a few minutes on Sunday morning from a preacher that didn't know beans about anything but theology or his denomination or doctrines!

9. BUT THOSE BUSINESSMEN WERE REAL WITNESSES & SOUL-WINNERS & REALLY ON THE BALL & really got out there & organised & pushed, & pretty soon they were booming, flourishing, so that both organisations have spread completely around the World like other businessmen's service organisations, Lions, Optimists & Rotary & all those. Businessmen know how to organise, they know how to advertise, they know how to push, they know how to work at it & they know how to have meetings that appeal to businessmen, not stuffy church sermons, so those businessmen's organisations really boomed!

10. SO I THINK THAT PROVES WHAT FRED SAID: YOU CAN GO OUTSIDE THE CHURCHES. He said‚ "Get your own converts & your own followers‚ then they'll follow you." Isn't that what we've done? Didn't it work? Then you don't have to worry about all their church folderol! He said, "You are going to spend more time trying to brainwash them from all that, trying to undo all the damage that the church has done, instead of just getting raw recruits that don't know anything about it & don't care & haven't got anything & would rather have what you've got."

11. SO I'M JUST WONDERING SOMETIMES IF THE APOSTLE PAUL DIDN'T MAKE A MISTAKE ABOUT THAT TOO, if he wouldn't have been better off & had less persecution if he had stuck to the calling God gave him, to go to the Gentiles & not the Jews. But then of course his crowning crime & disobedience against every warning of the Lord, the prophets' warnings & everything, was to go back to the temple of Jerusalem & try to win them! Talk about stupidity! You wonder sometimes about Paul, he was so smart theologically, such a theologian‚ but maybe he was too much of a church man, he was just that dumb that he still thought that he could go back & win them‚ like I thought I could!

12. I TRIED THE SAME THING.—EVEN FRED DID FOR AWHILE. HE WAS A BAPTIST & HE STUCK IN THE BAPTIST CHURCHES FOR YEARS, he went around doing these Callaghan surveys & all kinds of stuff, all kinds of excuses to get the church people out canvassing, witnessing, soul–winning‚ & of course it appealed to the church people because it meant more people in church & more people to come to church & church members & more money & blah, blah! He got so sick & fed up with those preachers & churches, for that's all they were interested in—they weren't really interested in the souls, they just wanted the crowd & more money, bigger offerings! Very few of them were really that concerned about souls—if they had been, they'd have been on the mission field!

13. SO I WONDER IF OUR FOLKS HAD STUCK TO THE OUTSIDERS, INSTEAD OF GOING INTO THESE CHURCHES & church schools & church institutions & advertising themselves abroad, widespread on radio & television & ads & everything else, if we wouldn't have been better off! We have had so much rope we have nobody but ourselves to blame, we've practically hung ourselves!

14. EVEN JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES ARE SMARTER! They don't go out on their door-to-door witnessing trips on Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon when the church folks are all home. They do their major door-to-door visitation on Sunday morning during church time‚ & Sunday night during church time, & also Wednesday nights during what in the U.S. is usually church time. They don't want to see the church people. They want to go to the guys who are fed up with church & never did like church or dropped out of the church, or the outright unchurched‚ & look how they boomed! We really cut our own throats by going into some of these countries through the churches!

15. SOMETIMES I WISH I HAD NEVER WRITTEN THAT LETTER "INVADE THE CHURCHES" (No.834), but I felt sorry for some of these poor people that didn't seem to know how to get support, & I knew it was dangerous, & I warned them about it. I knew that if they'd go in there & not give their affiliation to the church people, those dear common poor church people, the dumb stupid idiots that follow the preachers, simple little Christians who really loved the Lord, would really fall all over them & receive them with open arms & support & everything, just like they did us. But then it was the preacher & the watchdogs of the faith & the hierarchy that finally got leery every time & forced us out, threw us out or ran us out or just didn't invite us back any more!

16. ONE POOR PREACHER IN MIAMI WHO HAD ME IN HIS CHURCH, THEY EVEN THREW HIM OUT, POOR GUY, OF HIS FREE METHODIST CHURCH FOR HAVING ME! He lost his church! I felt so sorry for him. But he said, "Don't worry, Dave, I've gained something a lot better than that through what you've taught me!", etc. So I don't know where he went from there. Maybe he really did something for the Lord. I think he had always wanted to go to the mission field. Maybe he went to the mission field. Anyhow, I preached the truth, & let the chips fall where they may!

17. BUT GOING INTO THE CHURCHES, BROTHER, REALLY COSTS! It pays monetarily for a short while‚ but then in the long run it costs heavy opposition & persecution from the powers that be & the church‚ which has a lot of influence with the government! So for short-time results, short-term gains, you pay a big price in the long-term, like we have paid all over the World for that matter!

18. IT WASN'T REALLY TILL WE STARTED GOING TO THOSE CHURCHES IN ORANGE COUNTY‚ HUNTINGTON BEACH, Costa Mesa & around there, including the schools, two of their greatest strongest System institutions‚ that we began to really get heavy persecution, jealousy‚ opposition! I mean we were touching & invading the Devil's favourite institutions—schools & churches! How do you like that for a shocker?!

19. WELL, IT HAS A QUICK PAY-OFF! People always like you right away & some of the preachers are even sucked in temporarily, fooled, but not really fooled, they like what they see because they know it is right & real! But then they begin hearing from the higher-ups & the hierarchy—"Watch out for those people! They'll take your people away, blah‚ blah! They'll take your sons & daughters away, & blah, blah!" And then they've got to start saying no, & finally persecution results. And of course, you have reaped a few souls out of the churches & a few of their children as we did, but it always results in heavy opposition, heavy persecution, bad publicity & frequently you get completely run out!

20. WHO KNOWS? MAYBE YOU'D HAVE DONE BETTER IF YOU'D STUCK TO THE SINNERS & THE OUTSIDERS & STEERED CLEAR OF THE CHURCHES & THE CHURCH PEOPLE & THEIR INSTITUTIONS. I HAVE A FEELING, ESPECIALLY NOW SINCE WE ARE SO WELL KNOWN, WE'D BE A LOT BETTER OFF TO AVOID THE CHURCHES & the church institutions like poison, stay away from them & stick to the outsiders. After all, you're not proselytising their sheep there & you're not running in competition there because they're not trying to reach the outsiders, so how can they be jealous or envious?

21. LET'S FACE IT!—THAT'S WHAT CAUSED A LOT OF THE EARLY APOSTLES & JESUS A LOT OF TROUBLE‚ GOING INTO THE TEMPLE & SYNAGOGUES! But they seemed to feel that they owed it to them first to reach the real sheep first & give them the Good News‚ & maybe they were right, but they sure paid a price for it! So did the Apostle Paul & Christians down through the ages, including us!

22. I'LL TELL YOU, THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING NOW, I THINK IT BEHOOVES US TO STEER CLEAR OF THE CHURCHES more & more, because more & more of them have heard about us & have recognised us & our ways, even our language & our bright & happy faces & all of our kids & the way they sing & all. I mean we have so many identification marks sticking out all over us now that there is hardly any church person who has ever heard about us that wouldn't recognise us! So I think we're safer to steer clear of them now.

23. THAT HAD ITS DAY AS LONG AS WE COULD GET AWAY WITH IT! BUT I DON'T THINK WE CAN GET AWAY WITH IT ANYMORE because we are World-famous, & amongst the churches we're already World infamous! They've heard about us & they are wary of us & are told to beware of us, so they've been forewarned now so there is not too much opportunity in the churches anymore.

24. IN SOME OF THE COUNTRIES LIKE INDIA & INDONESIA & IN THE PHILIPPINES where they've been received with open arms by lots of churches & Christians, now the doors are closing, slamming shut real hard in some places! And now it's no longer an asset but a liability, their fame that has spread abroad throughout the churches, & even limits their public witnessing other places, anywhere, & threatens to get them completely run out of some of the countries wherever they recognise them or catch them!

25. SO I CERTAINLY DON'T THINK IT'S WORTH IT ANYMORE NOW! There may have been a day for it in our early days when we needed a little extra help or push or proselytes who had readymade knowledge of the Scriptures & leadership, etc., but I think that day is over! I think the days of church invasions are pretty well coming to their close, & anybody that risks church invasions or church visitation, as I would prefer to call it, is risking almost everything! (Maria: Not just for themselves but also for a lot of other people!—A lot of the rest of the Family!) Yes‚ they're endangering themselves & the Family & other Homes, & they stand a chance of not only getting thrown out of the church but out of the town & out of the country, not just themselves but the whole Family!

26. SO I DON'T THINK IT'S WORTH IT ANYMORE, REALLY! I really think they ought to avoid any confrontations with the churches & organised religion & keep a low profile & stay as much out of sight as possible, & go to the Gentiles, go to the unsaved & the unchurched! It's kind of hard to find anybody that's not religious, especially in the Orient. They've got some kind of religion, but most of them are not too ardent in their practice, they're only professing religionists‚ they don't really practice it very much, they're not that zealous in their religion & religious practice.

27. SO I THINK IT IS BETTER NOW TO GO TO THE PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF THE CHURCHES & CERTAINLY NOT RIGHT TO THE CHURCHES OR THE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS, but at least go outside where the general public are & have a chance & keep a low profile there too in ministries which are more secretive & less obvious, such as going door-to-door, which I think is one of the best, & some of them like office-to-office & even restaurant-to–restaurant. Even preaching in the park is getting a little dangerous nowadays!—And street witnessing or litnessing is getting a little dangerous! You're better to stick to some kind of ministry that's a little more hidden where you're off the street & out of the park & public places & where you're a little better protected inside of homes or offices or stores or restaurants or whatever. Don't you think so?—Certainly not in the churches, ha!

28. SO MAY GOD DELIVER US FROM THAT KIND OF MINISTRY WHICH IS A MINISTRY WHICH IS BECOMING A MENACE!—THE MENACE MINISTRY! That's enough! I didn't come in here to talk about that, but maybe it was the Lord. Watch out for the menacing ministries of the Churches!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family