DO 2720 3/10/91

Yugoslavian History

1. While we're getting along better every day, the World's getting worse every day!—And the most pitiful situation is the one that's happening right now in Yugoslavia. How do they expect that poor little province of Croatia to win when the whole Army and Air Force and all the tanks of the Federal Government of Yugoslavia are invading that one poor little province! So I feel kind of sorry for Croatia.

2. The other side‚ the Serbs‚ are getting even now, because there was a time during World War II when the Croatians had the upper hand, & they weren't very kind either. (See WND 370‚ pg.2-3.) But now the Serbians have the upper hand & they're getting their revenge. In the meantime, it's the poor people, the common people, as usual, who are really the ones who suffer in all the wars. While the politicians & armies contend, it's the poor people & the common people & the ordinary people who really suffer, who are getting their houses & churches destroyed in Croatia. Croatia is really getting the worst of it.

3. There was a day when Austria-Hungary would have moved in & protected them, especially after their Archduke got shot down there by a Serbian in 1914. But the trouble with that was, I think Russia moved in to protect them, & then France & Great Britain moved in to protect them, & pretty soon you had all Europe at war in World War I!

4. This last time, World War II, there was a lot of fighting there too. Hitler's forces took over, but then the resistance, mostly Communist underground resistance, fought the Nazis who had taken over Yugoslavia. When the Allies helped Tito, who was the leader of the resistance forces, he finally began to take over, & when the war was over, the Allies rewarded him by giving him Yugoslavia. Though he was a Communist, since he'd had all this help from the West & the Allies & they favoured him, he in turn favoured them. Instead of joining Russia & all those other Communist nations, he stayed supposedly neutral & non-aligned, but really he was more pro-Western than anything else.

5. Tito was the first one to really unite all the different nationalities & languages into the Republic of Yugoslavia. So really it was already a mess & always has been a mess there because of the surging forces back & forth between the forces of the West & Catholicism‚ & the forces of the East & the Muslims & Eastern Orthodox. The Balkans are a real mixture & have always been a real mess, & Tito was just about the only one who was ever able to keep some of them together. After he died in 1980 they very soon started breaking up & have been going downhill ever since.

6. You may sometimes wonder why some of these situations occur. Well, the animosity, the enmity & the vengeance goes back hundreds of years amongst these little bunches of people. No doubt that's one reason the Lord scrambled the languages at Babel, otherwise Mankind would have been under a one-World dictatorship a long time ago, not too long after Noah! Since they all spoke one language they were all ready to build a great empire of one language, so the Lord had to screw up the languages to divide them‚ so that nobody would be powerful enough to control the whole World. And finally it has now dwindled down to two main Super Powers, & one of them, the Soviet Union, seems to be crumbling.—Of course, that could all be one of the Devil's deceits, but thank God the Family is getting in there! We're going great guns while it's still open!

New Laws in the Soviet Union!

7. But they're already beginning to pass laws in the Soviet Union that when enforced would eventually force us out! They've always supposedly had religious freedom according to the Soviet Constitution, but they didn't. Now they have gained religious freedom, but they are discussing new laws that all churches of all denominations have freedom of worship, assembly‚ religion‚ beliefs & distribution of Bibles & literature & access to television & radio & all the rest‚ providing ... guess what? (Family: That they register.) Exactly! Providing they are registered with the government, which will no doubt be used to try to muscle us out!

8. Already some of the denominations are fighting us tooth & tong! It's funny, it's nearly always the Evangelicals, the ones with whom we actually hold a common faith! They fear us more than they do the Catholics or the Orthodox! Of course, they've got no possibility of overcoming the Catholics or the Orthodox, so maybe that's why they pick on us, because they know they can get us in trouble. So there have been some who've been smearing us in the press, but still we've continued to have wonderful freedom there & tremendous results‚ a terrific harvest!

Fruitful Ministries in the U.S.S.R. & E.E.!

9. The latest reports from there are just absolutely terrific! Visitors from far-off places such as Siberia travel to the big cities like Moscow where our teams Poster & reach people from all over! They come in to the big cities, these people speaking various languages etc. from far-flung parts of the Soviet Union.—Which actually is no longer a union! They're trying to scrape together the pieces & get them at least somewhat united, but right now it hasn't happened yet. There actually is no Soviet Union any more‚ but people are in such a habit, & newsmen etc. keep calling it the Soviet Union, & the people in the country also.

10. We're having tremendous distribution stats there! They're getting out our lit by the millions to the millions there! The Lord is just wonderful, the wonderful mercy He's showing to those people who have been choked up & strangled for so long. For 70-some years the government has tried to blind them to religion & cram Communism & atheism down their throats, & now it's just all crumbling & washing away! God's getting great victories out of seeming defeat!

11. Our young people have been especially instrumental in the harvest of Russians in Eastern Europe! They have what they call the "bus ministry" where our young people's singing teams catch these Russian buses coming in, & they sing & lead the people in a prayer to receive the Lord. They said many of the people are just weeping afterwards. When they come in‚ the people look so sad & glum & gloomy, but after the kids have been there & sung to them & led them in a prayer to receive the Lord, they've just all brightened up like sunshine, with smiles & tears of happiness & everything else! It's become almost the most fruitful part of our ministry there! Here's an excerpt from a report by one of our leaders who was able to witness the exciting outreach efforts of our Family in Eastern Europe:

12. "Hundreds of precious Russian people got saved on the Russian buses yesterday as a result of our young people's teams singing on them! We had already viewed an example of this on a video which showed the very touching transformation of the before-&-after pictures of the people on the Russian bus: The `before' shots are of them looking so sad & hopeless, & then being miraculously transformed before your very eyes after praying a Salvation prayer with our singing team who boarded the bus & sang for them. These people eagerly receive the Posters, & suddenly there's new light & hope on their faces.

13. "Well, to witness this first-hand is an experience that defies description! We feel we'll never forget the sight we viewed yesterday! It's just amazing how every person in every bus was just so ripe and ready! There were no scoffers, there were no smart–alecks‚ everyone from teenagers to grandmothers eagerly prayed along to receive the Lord after only a few short songs. Many of them burst into tears within moments of the singing, as their light shone through the darkness and fear that they've experienced over these past years. We saw many people crying virtually uncontrollably with joy after having received the Lord. And these are Russians who have come from Republics all over the place, some travelling for eight days to get to where they could sell their goods in an open market in order to make a few dollars of foreign currency."

Soviet Economy Collapsing!

14. Of course, the Soviet Union is facing a terrible economic situation & shortage of food. They say this Winter is going to tell the tale as to whether the various governments there are going to be able to keep things together or not. Some of them are saying it could mean food riots & even civil war because of the terrible economic situation. The whole Communist economic system has crumbled & gone completely kaput! The whole thing is just collapsing!

15. Even though they sometimes have good harvests‚ they've got a confused food distribution system where the food sits in the freight cars rotting away while the shelves are empty in the big cities, & it's pitiful! Meanwhile‚ the little farmers out on the farms have all they want to eat, they're doing fine! They as good as say to the news reporters, "We don't have any worries out here, we're doing fine! We don't care anything about politics. So they're starving in the cities, we can't help that!" etc.

Armenia‚ Georgia & the Ukraine

16. And of course the countries that were fighting the Communist central government all the time are now declaring their independence.—The Christian countries like the Baltics—Latvia, Estonia & Lithuania—& in the South‚ Georgia, Armenia & the Ukraine.

17. The Armenians are really in a tough situation! One of the first things Red Antichrist Russia did was they divided up Armenia & gave half of it to the Muslims. This was after Turkey had already seized a lot of it. And then there was such a strong‚ solid Armenian section in the center, they almost had to give it to the Armenians—Nagorno-Karabakh. That's all Armenian‚ completely surrounded by all of these Muslims of Azerbaijan.

18. So they split up Armenia & gave a big chunk of it to the Muslims, & that one little enclave was given to the Armenians in the middle of the Muslims, & there's no way to solve the situation now. The Soviet Union let all these Muslims flood in & gave them territory, & now, of course, they don't want to move. So the Reds did a pretty good job—or rather a bad job—of breaking up Christian Armenia!

19. The Ukraine & Georgia have predominantly German roots! The steppes of Southern Russia were just desolate wilderness, or had been for many years, so I think beginning at the time of the Czars, but especially encouraged during the time of the Communists, they wanted to get some buffer country there between them & Germany etc. so they opened the doors of colonisation to both Georgia & the Ukraine & those provinces were just flooded with Germans coming in from poor Eastern Germany. The Eastern part of Germany has always been very poor, & of course with two World Wars, in which the Germans lost both of them, the Allies kept trimming them down & trimming them down to where there wasn't much left! So of course these strong German Christians from Germany flooded in.

20. Eastern Germany was the land of Luther! That's where Martin Luther began & they still have memorials to him. I think the Communists even allowed one statue of Luther in Eisleben, the town where he began & where the Reformation began. They've always been very very strongly Christian.—Catholic, of course, but nevertheless Christian. Of course, some Protestants would think I was a heretic for calling the Catholics Christians, but nowadays when Satan's forces are so strong, Communism & all the rest, you can even be thankful for Catholics!

21. So they populated those Southern Russian steppes & are extremely strong down there. Now, of course, they want to rebel & ditch the Soviet Union entirely & be their own countries. But they were largely Christian also. And Christian "White Russia" as we have called it, including the three Baltics—Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia—have been strongly Christian Catholic & fought Russian occupation. The Russians just walked in, invaded them & took them over during WW2. And after the war, the Allies drew certain lines & gave everything on the Eastern side of the line to Russia, including the Baltics, East Germany & the Balkans.

22. Stalin really had his way at Yalta & Potsdam! He was the strongest negotiator & he beat the others down till they finally yielded. FDR was sick & died shortly after the Yalta Conference. Churchill was a great orator‚ but English oratory didn't seem to affect the Russians much. So finally they pretty much gave up & let Stalin have what he wanted.

Pray for the Poor People of Yugoslavia!

23. So the strong central governments are literally dissolving, & that's also the problem in Yugoslavia. As long as they were kept together by force under a strong dictator like Tito‚ & they were kept down & under foot & undemocratic, they pretty much stayed at peace; they were forced to. But now that everything's crumbling‚ some of these various provinces of Yugoslavia—which are extremely different, with different cultures, languages & everything—are fighting to get their independence.

24. Slovenia, the little province above Croatia‚ is backed up pretty much by Austria right behind it, & Italy, so at least the Federal Government of Yugoslavia is not bothering them yet. Of course, they may wait till they've picked off Croatia & then start on Slovenia. Slovenia is pretty well backed up by some of the larger powers behind it who don't care to have the Serbs right on their borders.

25. The Federal Government of Yugoslavia is predominantly Serbian. Since the days of Tito, the Federal Government, of course‚ was supposed to be the uniting force of all Yugoslavia, so they had most of the army & the arms & the tanks & the guns & the planes etc.‚ & now they're using them to crush poor little Croatia. And there are a lot of Croatians who are protesting & trying to get some of the big powers to step in & intervene. But NATO said no!

26. The European Economic Community‚ which is now trying to become a political community, has sent in team after team after team to try to get ceasefires. They no sooner declare a ceasefire than somebody breaks it.—And mostly because the Serbian-dominated Federal Government is determined to crush the independence of any of the provinces. So it's a sad, pitiful situation.

27. People who used to live together peacefully, side by side as neighbours, are now fighting each other. They're raising up civilian militias & vigilantes & are trying to arm themselves the best they can, & it looks like some of Croatia's friends are sending in arms.

28. It's a pitiful situation, so please pray for the poor common people, who are the ones that usually suffer. Pray for the Yugoslav people, for whatever is God's Will. If they need war to humble them & make them receptive to the Lord, well, praise the Lord. That's what the Lord has had to let happen in a lot of places to get people really humbled & willing to receive the Lord. He gave the Soviets 70–some years of Communism to humble them, till finally they realised they couldn't do without religion and God—& food—& now they're receiving us with open arms & smiles & tears & are thankful!

Pray for Personnel & Funds for Soviet Harvest Fields!

29. So many people are getting saved that have come in from the far-flung, furthest eastern parts of the Soviet Union, that we now have quite a Mail Ministry there. They're getting hundreds on the mailing list from those places that are closer to Japan than they are to Moscow! So instead of depending on these people coming all the way to the Western European part of the Soviet Union, we're now going to try to raise up help & teams from our Eastern fields & to send them into the Eastern Soviet Union where they can reach them in groups & teach them & lead them & establish Homes, or churches as the Bible would have called it.

30. The Lord is already raising up labourers in Russia itself from those who we have already won to the Lord, & they are now in turn helping to distribute the Posters & witness & win others to Jesus! We need to pray for more native Russian labourers like this who have a great many advantages since they already know the language & can stay in the country without worrying about visas etc.

31. It's such a fabulously open door, but we just haven't got the personnel! The Lord says, "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few! Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth labourers into His harvest!"—Fields that are already white unto harvest!—Mat.9:37,38; John 4:35. So pray for that, that the Lord will do that. They say they need money, as well as personnel, to follow these people to where they're at. PYL! Hallelujah! TYJ! Amen, let's pray for them right now‚ shall we? Someone with a burden lead us in prayer for those people.

32. (Family: Lord‚ You promised You would supply all our needs according to Your riches in glory! And there is a need there, Lord, a financial need & a need for personnel. In Jesus' name, we pray that You will meet the need. There's a vacuum there‚ a spiritual vacuum, & we pray that You will fill it‚ Lord, in Jesus' name, with literature & Your Words. We thank You for Dad's burden that You've put on his heart, & we pray that You will supply for Your children, Lord, in Jesus' name.) Amen!

33. The harvest there is ripe & ready, & they're receiving us with open arms & with almost no trouble or opposition! We're now putting more into this invasion of the Soviet Union than anywhere else on Earth, believe it or not!—Than any other country or any other battle front, because this is the tremendous harvest field right now & we don't know how long it's going to be open! We know by God's Word that it's not going to be open forever, & when the Crash comes in the Soviet Union—which is coming—economic Crash & starvation, famine & all the rest, there will undoubtedly be civil war! And I don't doubt that out of these wounds the Beast will rise again! Although it seems he's had a "wound unto death" (Rev.13:3), it looks like he's going to recover & the Antichrist is going to lead there. So that probably isn't going to be far away.

It Will Take a Miracle for the U.S.S.R. to Survive the Winter!

34. Nobody sees how the Soviet Union is going to be able to make it through this Winter, and they're all concerned and worried about it. Of course, a lot of the Western powers are worrying about it, talking a lot about it, but unwilling to put their money where their mouth is to help them! They're going to be sorry for that one of these days when another Dictator arises, the A.C., more powerful than any that have ever been there, and a Soviet dictatorship probably more powerful than anyone has ever had on Earth, which will be the Antichrist! He will try to establish a worldwide dictatorship, & he will!—Not without opposition, of course. You know the story, you've studied it & read it. (See Dan.7:21–27; 11:25,29–30,40,44-45.)

35. But if the Soviet Union survives this Winter, it will take a miracle of God!—Which means if our Work there can survive this Winter, it will certainly be miraculous! It will be a miracle if Russia gets through this winter without war & the rise of the Antichrist! But if you pray hard‚ maybe they will, so our folks can stay there & teach those catacombers to go out & witness! They're Soviets, they're natives who can speak the language! If we're kicked out due to these new laws & all, they can't very well kick out their own citizens, even if they have to go register. I don't know what would happen if we'd ever register!

36. Now please don't any of you folks here get so burdened that you get all stirred up and want to go! What would we do then? What would the headquarters do that's the nerve center for the whole Army! So you have a very very vital job right here. I've even thought about going! I talked to Mama about it, that maybe I could take a trip to Russia & inspire them. We've done it before in other fields!

You Keep Praying & I'll Keep Borrowing Time!

37. Anyway, that's the way things are going! It seems like every year is getting better for us, we just haven't had that slack year we were expecting yet! Every year we've had better statistics & things are getting better & better, every day in every way! PTL!

38. And please remember to pray for me. The back problem I've had recently is almost completely gone! If the Devil gives up on one thing, then he tries on another‚ so I think maybe I had too many of you laying your hands on my back, when I should have had some of you laying your hands on my tummy! I've always had trouble with my appendix. I'm the only member of my family that never had it taken out! My grandparents had theirs out, my father & mother both had theirs out, my brother & sister both had theirs out! But I was born after Mother was healed, & she was determined, & later I was determined not to go under the knife & have surgeons digging around inside of me. I figured the Lord could do it, & He did, & He has! For many years I had no problem at all with my appendix, until just lately.

39. It's amazing how the Devil can try all sorts of things. He's got a lot of tricks in his bag! Well, it keeps us all praying! It sure keeps me praying & looking to the Lord & remembering that I am living on borrowed time. The Lord only promised me 70 years, but you guys prayed & the whole Family has been praying, & here I still am, almost 73! Well, the Devil may think it's therefore his opportunity to squeeze in somewhere & knife me & get rid of me while I'm on this borrowed time, but if you keep praying, I'll keep borrowing! So remember me in your prayers! OK? GBY! PYL! Would you like to close in prayer‚ Son?

40. (David: TYJ! PYJ! Thank You Jesus for a good class, & thank You for Grandpa. Thank You for how You have healed him of lots of different things that the Devil has tried to hinder him with. We thank You, Lord, that You have proven that verse, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all."—Psa.34:19. And thank You how You keep doing it. Every time we ask You‚ You always answer & You never fail. But we do pray right now, Lord, for Grandpa's appendix. We know that this is just another attack of the Enemy to try to hinder Grandpa & put another monkey wrench in the works, Lord. So we really do pray for him, Jesus. You said‚ "They shall lay hands on the sick & they shall recover‚" & "Unto you that fear My name, shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in His Wings."—Mk.16:18; Mal.4:2) We rebuke you‚ Satan, in Jesus' name! Flee from us! (All lay on hands.)

41. (David: We resist the Devil‚ Lord! We pray, Jesus, that You will raise Grandpa up & that he won't have more problems with this. We really pray that You'll use Your healing power, & touch Grandpa's side & heal it‚ Lord, make it totally, every whit whole! You've done it so many different times, Lord, & You've healed people of much worse things. This is a small thing for You, Lord, & we're expecting You to do it. We're standing on Your Word, Lord, & we're really praying for Grandpa. He's suffered enough, Lord. We really pray, Lord, that You will do this, in Jesus' name!)

42. Amen, answer prayer, Lord! Thy Will be done! TYJ! PYL! Well, He sure healed me after your last prayer & the whole worldwide Family upholding me in prayer! I've been able to swallow okay, all these nice liquid foods that you fix for me, & my back hasn't pained me. Once in a great while I've had a little stab, but when all these other things failed to stop me‚ the last few days I've had trouble here in my appendix. But praise the Lord, I'm sure the Lord's going to answer your prayers on that too.

43. Thanks for coming & thanks for praying! I don't know whether you noticed, but I was rubbing my side here during Class. The Devil was trying to keep me from coming tonight, but I was determined! I'd missed one night so I didn't want to miss another one. So here I am, I'm still perking, still going, & the Lord, I'm sure, is going to heal me. If He wants me to stay with you, He's going to have to! PTL! Amen! I'm going to stick around as long as I can. So praise the Lord, amen? God bless you!—I love you!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family