DO 1872 10/84—Push Those Posters!

1. I THINK THESE POSTERS MIGHT BE ONE OF OUR LAST MINISTRIES TO GO RIGHT INTO 1986, OUR FINAL WORLD SATURATION WITH THE VISIONS OF THE TRUTH! This hits so hard & packs such a powerful wallop‚ I expect in the long run it'll have such impact that they'll be out to stop us if they can! And of course they're so obvious, especially if they're shown on the street or something, that it's not hard to find you. But I'm not going to worry about that, we've got to get'm out anyhow & they can easily be distributed even secretly, folded just the way they come in the mail. We can't just think about the streets alone like we have before, we have to think about personal distribution.

2. THEY HAVE TO REMEMBER THAT IT'S THE LORD THAT INSPIRES THESE ARTISTS WITH THE VISIONS & PICTURES THAT THEY GET. An artist is like a Prophet. I've told them before that their job is more like mine than anybody else's, because they have to really see visions & dream dreams, & then instead of just describing it in words, they have to actually draw & paint the pictures of what they see. They have to see something or they couldn't draw it, so that's what the Lord called visions. In art they usually call them conceptions or imagination etc., but they've got to see that picture before they can draw it or paint it. They are absolutely inspired on these new Poster paintings!

3. THANK THE LORD FOR THE ARTISTS' IMAGINATION! YOU CAN CALL IT IMAGINATION‚ BUT THE LORD CALLED IT VISION! When it's inspired, it's a vision! When you see pictures like that that are really inspired & really beautiful to be used for the Lord, you know the Lord gave it & they're not mere images of the imagination, they're inspired visions of the Lord!—Beautiful! With our Artists inspired like that & on the right track, I just know they could really go all the way to the sky! With them inspired, even the sky is not the limit!

4. GIVE EMAN CREDIT FOR SOME OF THE FIRST—HE'S THE FIRST ONE THAT TRIED TO DESCRIBE IN HIS ART THE BUILDINGS THAT I SAW IN HEAVEN! That was tackling quite a job to try to imagine the things that I was describing, but I believe the Lord really helped him because a lot of those pictures really do look like what I saw, the people & the flowers etc. I'm just kind of sorry that in those first pictures we drew Don Quixote so much. But the kids will get a kick out of Don Quixote & ask why he's there & who is he, & then somebody can explain to them that he was a great Saint of the past! I believe he was a Saint! He sure loved the Lord & he was trying to do good, so why shouldn't he be one of Heaven's spirit guides?

5. WE WERE USING DON QUIXOTE AT THAT TIME AS A CONCEPTION OF ME, because at that time they were forbidden to make me look like a Prophet. It was sort of a toss-up between Don Quixote & the Old Lion‚ & I think the Old Lion finally won out. But then when we began to allow them to show me as the bearded Prophet, they got into a more realistic conception that fit better than the Old Lion. The kids liked the Old Lion, but just the same, it's better that they get a little more realistic conception.

6. WE'VE SORT OF PROGRESSED & OUR ART HAS SORT OF EVOLVED FROM SOME OF THE BASICS INTO NOW SOME OF THE MOST HEAVENLY PERCEPTIONS, ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! I could think of all kinds of improvements on that old art, but why try to patch up the old art when we've got the colour prints all done & ready to go? As long as the art is not too bad & the captions are fairly good, why not use it? I think even the old Calendar Posters of '82 are beautiful. Some of it's a little bit amateurish, but it's still pretty & it's in colour & the kids won't worry about amateurism, they're not art critics. They only criticise it if they don't understand it or if they don't like the way it looks. If they think somebody should be smiling or the lion should be smiling to make it more pleasant or something, they'll say so.

7. BUT WHY GO BACK & PATCH UP THE OLD WHEN OUR ARTISTS CAN PRODUCE ALL THESE NEW BOTTLES SO EASILY? WHY PATCH UP THE OLD ONES? I just thought we'd use'm up since we had'm on hand ready to go & in beautiful colour. And they make for more variety! But now that they're really getting inspired with some of these beautiful new ones, my goodness, we don't need to go back to the old any more!

8. I JUST THINK THOSE PICTURES ARE FASCINATING! I can't see them very good from this distance, but you're not supposed to. But how do you like that idea of having a headline big enough so they sort of know the subject on the street? People are about this far away when they're approaching somebody on the street with them, & even if they just whizzed on by, that message is going to stick in their head: "The Happy End of the World!—Will You Be There?" "Here's the Future!—What Will Yours Be?" (Maria: You'd certainly be curious if you saw those titles!)

9. I'VE GOT'M LINED UP ALL ACROSS MY WALL SO I CAN SEE THEM EVEN FROM THIS DISTANCE & GET THE IMPRESSION THE PEOPLE WOULD GET even when coming down the street when they see somebody standing there selling them. Even if they can't see what the pictures are, the headlines ought to be enough to arouse their curiosity to want a closer look. And how would they have the nerve to come up & stick their nose in it for a closer look & start reading it unless they get one? Our kids are good salesmen & if the people show any interest at all they'll probably sell'm!

10. I DON'T KNOW WHY WE CAN'T CALL IT SELLING—ALL THE REST OF THE RELIGIOUS OUTFITS CALL THEIRS SELLING. They sell books & papers & magazines & things door-to-door & on the street corners. At first we avoided that term because we wanted to avoid any possibilities of having to get licenses & that sort of thing, some cities require licenses for commercial enterprise. But so many of them now have restrictions even against distribution & asking for donations or contributions, & they're tougher on that even than they are on sales! If you just go down & buy your little license, you're free, but you've got to go through all kinds of red tape to be allowed to ask for donations! You've got to be organised & recognised & approved of & everything else! They've got to make sure it's a worthy cause that they approve of & that you're bonafide & blah blah blah! But if you're just going down the street selling your little item & they can see what it is & why you're selling it, you're obviously trying to promote your religion & pay for it at the same time.

11. SO WHY NOT CALL IT SELLING? THERE'S NO LAW AGAINST SELLING IN THE BIBLE, THERE'S A LOT ABOUT SELLING IN THE BIBLE!—And they're worth buying! We used to think that maybe if we just asked for a donation we'd get more than a price, which is true in many cases. So they don't have to put a price on'm or ask for any special price, they can just say, "You can just give me whatever you think it's worth or whatever you'd like to give." (Maria: Some have said they do better door-to-door if they aren't really trying to sell the item itself but instead are asking for a donation to help them personally as missionaries, & then giving them the Poster free. And people often give more toward the support of a missionary than they would have given just for a Poster or tape.)—Amen!

12. GBY! USE WHATEVER SALES PITCH WORKS!—AMEN? Give'm the visions & "sell'm" on the Truth! Every missionary is a salesman!—Or he'll never get very far if they don't "buy it"!—Amen? So push your pitch whatever it is, whatever works to get'm to "buy it"!—Amen? God bless & keep you pushing God's Love!—In Jesus' name‚ amen!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family