—MO October 27, 1974NO.317C—DO

Copyrighted October, 1974 by The Children of God P. O. Box 31, London WC2E 7LX‚ England or GPO Box 3141‚ San Juan‚ Puerto Rico 00936

Dear Children: Greetings in Jesus' Precious Name!

1. I BELIEVE THAT YOU SHEPHERDS SHOULD READ THIS TOGETHER first before you share it with any others. Then agree on whom else you share it with and what parts you should share. Power to the People!—And Pump it!

2. WE HAVE JUST RECEIVED YOUR LATEST REPORTS dated as late as nearly a week ago but with some fairly up-to-date information on some of your recent ideas, about as soon as we can usually get them by mail. So we're answering them as soon as we can, although it may be a week before you receive these opinions and suggestions, which makes about a two-week time lag between the time you ask your questions and receive some answers.

3. HOWEVER‚ EVEN THE LORD DOES NOT ALWAYS ANSWER US RIGHT AWAY, WHICH SOMETIMES TESTS OUR FAITH and draws us closer to Him in the Spirit as we are driven to His Word to try to find some answers from what He has already said while waiting for more direct and specific answers in prayer. However, I notice that some of the prophets had the same problem with the Lord and some of their kings had the same problems with the prophets!

4. SO LEARNING PATIENCE SEEMS TO BE ONE OF GOD'S MOST FREQUENT LESSONS yet one of our own rarest virtues, as it really tests our faith and drives us to the Lord and His Word, to Whom and which we might not otherwise give so much time and attention. So at least it's one way God has of getting our attention while we're waiting for His direct answer or trying to find them in His past Words!—Amen?

5. SO THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE, THE EVIDENCE OF YOUR FAITH! I'm sorry that due to our rather slow and indirect means of communication at present that this must be so, but perhaps this is good for us all and drives us both more urgently to the Lord and His Word for more immediate and faster answers!—And we have gotten them, thank the Lord, as we have followed His immediate and direct leadings, even though our own communications have been so slow.

6. HIS ANSWERS ARE ALWAYS A JUMP AHEAD AND FORESEEING THE FUTURE‚ so that often, as you've noticed, He has already raised some of your question in my own heart even before I have received them from you, and frequently I have given you His replies already even before I have received your letters asking for them, the questions and answers actually crossing each other in the mails! PTL!

7. ISN'T HE WONDERFUL! HE KNOWS THE RIGHT ANSWERS TO EVERY THING AND IS ALWAYS AHEAD OF US, and where and "when He putteth forth His sheep‚ He goeth before them!" Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! God bless you for your nearness to Him so that He is able to lead you without my immediate physical presence! As outlined in "I Gotta Split!", it is obvious that He has deliberately done this so that I can be in closer communication with Him to get His more basic and general guidelines to pass on to all of you throughout the whole world, while you yourselves personally and locally make your own immediate decisions regarding your own tending of the tables of many details with which I cannot and should not become too closely involved. PTL!

8. SO BY THE TIME YOU GET THIS LETTER YOU'LL PROBABLY HAVE ALREADY MADE YOUR OWN DECISIONS on what you need to do as a result of God's general blasts against your general and repeated blobbing‚ and with only His general suggestions on what you could and might do and possibly should do, whilst you yourselves must work out for yourselves the specific details.—Amen?

9. SO WE HAVE BEEN VERY GLAD TO HEAR YOUR GOOD REPORTS OF YOUR HAVING COME TO SOME OF THE SAME CONCLUSIONS that we have here due to the Lord's generally warning Voice to us both and according to His usual pattern. But I notice again that it always seems to take a little extra push of persecution from bad publicity to hasten us to make up our minds to move, when the Lord has already said "move" or "plan to move" for some time, as I told you a year ago, and as He is always telling us that we must be always prepared to move and will always be on the move if we are to remain His gospel gypsies, strangers and pilgrims on the earth, always seeking a better city in a better country until at last we find His perfect one! Hallelujah!

10. THIS IS FOR OUR OWN GOOD AND SELF-PRESERVATION OF HIS PROPHETS TO PROCLAIM THE CONTINUED MESSAGE by whatever methods available and to facilitate the spreading of same throughout the whole world!—Just as He has done with the Jews and the Gypsies whom He has continually scattered by the pressure of persecution, although they seem to have largely failed in their mission of the message! God help us never to do that!

11. MAY WE CONSTANTLY MAKE THE SPREAD OF THE MESSAGE OUR PRIMARY MOTIVE FOR OUR MOVES, although He always seems to have to give us a little extra push to make us do it when we start letting the roots grow down, get too settled and comfortable and therefore slow down our progress in going into all the world to preach His loving News! PTL?

12. MY OWN LITTLE FAMILY WOULD NEVER HAVE LEFT FLORIDA NOR TEXAS‚ nor would our slightly larger family have ever left California or Arizona, or even our greater family have ever left both California and Texas and much less the United States if God has not put the pressure on each time to make us move long after He had already shown us we should! But as His good result, thank the Lord, there are now not only six of us or fifty of us or one hundred of us or five hundred of us as we were when we began to make each of these moves, but there are now thousands of us not only in one or two or four or forty Colonies in the U.S. alone, but hundreds in over fifty countries around the entire Globe, so that the sun never sets on the Children of God! Hallelujah!—Otherwise, it might have set for all of us once and for all a long time ago!

13. AND THE SAME WITH OUR LITERATURE AND THE SERMONS OF OUR MESSAGE WHICH CREATED YOU SAMPLES AROUND THE WORLD! God had to drive me out and push me halfway around the world to get going on writing them; and then He had to cut off most of your other sources of material supplies, friends and forsake–alls in order to push you out of your Colonies and onto the streets to distribute the message by the millions for the billions‚ even for your own support when He couldn't do it any other way, as He warned us in my "Birthday Warning" of 1973! Hallelujah!

14. JUST LIKE HE SCATTERED THE EARLY CHURCH BY THE SWORD TO GET THEM TO GO EVERYWHERE preaching as they went to everybody in multitudes of other countries when they had been all bunched up at Jerusalem and refused to move except for a few‚ and as He continued to do to Christians, Jews and Gypsies for generations, so has He had to continue to do to us to make us move when He says move!

15. HE GAVE US GRANDMOTHER'S "WARNING" PROPHECIES TO TRY TO PERSUADE MY OWN LITTLE FAMILY TO START MOVING, but had to give us some extra pushes to get us going. He gave us many prophecies in California to split and spread‚ but we didn't until He gave us an extra shove! He also gave us many warnings to be prepared to leave Fred and his properties and scatter further, but we wouldn't until He had to use Fred himself to throw us out!

16. NEITHER WOULD MOST OF US EVER HAVE LEFT THE POOR OLD U.S. DESPITE REPEATED WARNINGS TO SCATTER ABROAD throughout the whole earth, including many specifics like "The Great Escape" and "Mene Mene", etc., unless God had given us a few more and extra kicks in the pants from the old Devil himself by means of our enemies! Hallelujah! Thank God for the Devil and our enemies! If He can't get us to get the job done any other way, He sends along the old Boy and his buddies to give us an extra boost!

17. AND HE'S CERTAINLY DOING THAT RIGHT NOW IN BOTH THE U.S. AND BRITAIN FROM WHAT WE HEAR! So it sounds to us like it's about time we took the hint as well as their help to make the move! He warned us nearly a year ago and more in things like the "Antenna" and "The Crash" that it was coming sooner or later and we'd better get ready for it then, but of course we didn't as usual; so by a miracle He had to make me move first, and now you, by closing the doors there to suitable housing and frightening you with a little bad publicity before He has to send some actual persecution and real governmental pressure to put you out! When will we ever learn!

18. BUT BECAUSE WE IGNORE HIS WARNINGS TO MAKE ADVANCE PREPARATIONS TO MAKE IT EASIER, WE'RE ALWAYS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A DILEMMA AT THE LAST MINUTE and have to muddle quickly through in a big mess leaving much behind and dropping more along the way and try to hurry and scurry as fast as we can to get out quickly before it's too late to get out at all organisedly!

19. AT LEAST, THANK GOD, HE HASN'T PERMITTED OUR ENEMIES TO HAVE TO BLOW UP ANY OF OUR BUILDING TO MAKE US MOVE‚ but He just might if we don't! I've known Him, to blow down a few to make folks move, including my folks' great tabernacle and also a great tent for revivals we once had! So for God's sake and yours I hope He doesn't have to do that to you now!—Let's move NOW!—Amen?—And we're glad to hear from your reports that that's exactly what you're planning and in the direction God has been leading! If He couldn't get you to go help Paris any other way, He may have to move a bunch of you over there to get 'em organised and take advantage of more of their opportunities of surfing the crest of their present wave!—Hallelujah?—Amen! Let it be so!

20. AND WE HOPE YOU GET IT GOING AND MOVING IMMEDIATELY! That building they already have may be part of the solution if you can at least lease it a little more permanently: If not for a year or more, at least on a three to six months' notice. That would be fair enough and give us time to find another location before the next move came, as it always does!—Praise the Lord?

21. SOMEONE OF FAITH, VISION‚ INITIATIVE, COURAGE AND PIONEERING BUSINESS ABILITY SHOULD GO IMMEDIATELY TO PARIS to see what the score is and what could be done about it before we lose that, too! Meanwhile‚ until that's settled and you have a fairly permanent place to move to there, maybe you could move the mail ministry immediately to help Paris start taking care of its flood of French mail, and any other folks or departments who can be spared and relocated at once, and the rest of you adjust according to need, numbers and importance until better moves are able to be made.

22. WE ALSO AGREE ON GENERAL PRINCIPLES ON THE WAY WE ORIGINALLY ARRANGED YOUR ORGANISATION that the Minister's Meetings should be held separately from the Executive Council Meeting and each body should make its own decisions subject to the other's approval‚ just as all other two house legislative bodies do throughout the world, from the U.S. to the U.N., Britain, etc. The one usually represents the top and the other the bottom. the one the rulers and the other, the people, Our Executive Council should represent the people, and our Ministers should be their servants, since the people usually know more about what they're doing than most of the Ministers.

23. THE MINISTERS' MEETINGS SHOULD NOT HAVE MORE THAN ONE MINISTER TO REPRESENT EACH MINISTRY just as the Executive Council should not have more than one Executive to represent each department. Otherwise, some of you are gonna have so many representatives there from your own departments that your voting is gonna be pretty heavily loaded in your own favour! Just as other legislative bodies have assistants and observers and staff members in attendance for conferring and helping in your own departments' voting decision, so you too could permit your wives, secretaries‚ or one or two staff members to attend and participate in the meetings with you if you so choose and agree‚ but each department should still only have one vote on the final decision.—Amen?

24. THIS IS THE WAY THE U.S. SENATE‚ HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE U.N. ASSEMBLY DOES IT: Each state, province or country only has one representative each regardless of size or population, to protect the sovereign rights of each. But each government also usually has a larger balancing governmental body more representative of the common people and apportioned according to their actual numbers in each state, province, division, area or department. So perhaps you also need a third body of representatives of your departments apportioned more according to their numbers in order to be more representative of all the people equally.

25. THE MINISTERS ARE LIKE THE KING'S COUNCIL OR PRESIDENT'S CABINET OR THE PRIME MINISTER'S MINISTERS, and are usually appointed by the government or party leader or ruler himself. Whereas the others are elected by their respective bodies of constituents of the people themselves. All of these bodies must agree together on all legislation or decisions made, or no rule or law can be passed or move made without the consent of all or at least the united majority consent of each together. Even then the president, Pope, king, prime Minister, party leader or top governing figurehead can usually veto the actions of the others if he thinks it unwise, unless they can override his veto by a large majority vote of each house, usually from 2/3 to 3/4 of the representatives concerned. So this might be a good idea for you to consider‚ too. This would make your governing bodies much more representative, giving greater equality and fairness to their decisions to varying degrees as you may choose to do. That's up to you.

26. YOU MAY BE SURPRISED HOW WELL THE PEOPLE CAN GOVERN THEMSELVES through their own chosen representatives if you give them a chance and stop meddling in their matters of tending their own tables of which they should be the best judges and more responsible, like the deacons in Acts 6, as long as they get job done and deliver the goods!

27. OF COURSE, IF THEY FAIL TO PRODUCE, SOMEBODY'S GOTTA STEP IN AND LET'EM KNOW ABOUT IT and kneedle them to do something about it, which is usually the top executive's job, such as me or Jeth or your departmental head, etc. As long as they're running smoothly and producing the necessary work, please try to leave them alone unless they really need help and could use a few suggestions for improvement or are down–right falling down on the job, in which case you might have to butt in, shake 'em up or even take 'em over! Amen?

28. WE HAVE SIMILAR PROBLEMS TO ALL GOVERNMENTS, BUT THANK GOD, WE HAVE THE LORD, a good king‚ and His all-wise, all-knowing, all-powerful voice and leadership to guide us! PTL! we also have a very good prime Minister there who's doing his best and a very good job of it, thank the Lord, and who is trying not to be a dictator, but let you and the Lord run yourselves if and when you're able, but must step in to push you a bit under my own orders if you're not making the progress you should‚ and God has blessed him and you for it because of his and your dependence on the Lord.—Amen?—God bless dear old Jeth! Let's have a round of applause!

29. WE'VE ALSO GOT A MIGHTY WONDERFUL, FAITHFULLY FOLLOWING BUNCH OF LEADERS in most of you whom we believe are also doing your best and have all done a tremendous job to make our worldwide work for the Lord what it is today! God bless and continue to help every one of you to continue to do a good job until we're done and Jesus comes, when your really big jobs will begin of running the whole world! So get ready for it now and be faithful with the few!

30. WE'RE SORRY WE'VE HAD TO BAWL YOU OUT a few times lately for some of your boners, delays and down-right disobediences‚ but that's Dad's job, and we hope you know it's because we love you and for your own sake as well as God's Work. we hope you will all be able to agree together on these things even unanimously in His Spirit as much as possible. God bless you all! Love, Dad.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family