—A Chilling Dream!

—MO23/1/76DFO—No.383

Copyrighted Feb. 1976 by The Children of God.

1. I'VE BEEN TRYING TO REMEMBER THIS DREAM ALL NIGHT, ever since I had it when I first went to sleep last night. I should have told you before and I wouldn't have had to lie awake all night trying to keep it in mind.

2. WELL, WE WERE ALL SLIPPING AND SLIDING AROUND ON THIS WET MUDDY GROUND IN THE DEEP MUD TRYING TO SAVE THE KIDS THAT WERE STUCK IN IT.—That's pretty clear, huh? So I yelled for a couple of lines. I said, "If we had a couple of lines here it would help!" When they brought them, one was made of little white links that looked like letter envelopes‚ and somebody said (I don't know who, maybe it was an angel),

3. "THIS REPRESENTS THE MAIL, THE MAIL MINISTRY.—You've got to keep up with the mailing list to help the kids and to follow up the converts." So they threw us this line and said, "Here, this'll help." So I handed it to this slightly heavy-set older, more mature-looking blonde girl, 'cause it seemed like she'd be able to take care of responsibilities like that. She was a secretary. So she took it and began throwing the line out to help the kids out of the mud.

4. THEN SOMEBODY ELSE HANDED US A BLACK LINE AND SAID‚ "THIS IS YOUR LOGS. This is a very important line to record your activities and your news and your testimonies. This is a big help to the kids—take good care of it!" So I handed it to this tall slim pretty girl who was also a secretary and she began throwing it out to help all the kids out of the mud.

5. THEN I SAID, "BUT THE KIDS HAVE GOT TO HAVE SOME PLACE TO LIVE." And the big blonde girl said, "Well, I've got a house that has apartments—you can use that." And she handed me several keys, each to a different apartment. I took the keys and went over to the house and unlocked the different doors and said‚ "Oh, my‚ how nice! This is lovely! This'll be fine for so and so. This one will do nicely for so and so," etc. "This'll be a nice apartment for the shepherd," etc.

6. APPARENTLY THIS BIG BLONDE GIRL WAS SORT OF RICH 'cause she then gave me a handful of diamonds! She said, "Here, you can have these, too. We can sell them and they'll help pay expenses." I remember holding them in my hand so carefully, I was so afraid some of the little ones would slip out. I said‚ "We've got to keep these in a safe place.—These are very valuable!" And she said, "Here, you can have the key to my bank and to the safe deposit box.—It's that building over there."

7. THERE NEARBY STOOD THIS BEAUTIFUL GLASS AND POLISHED STEEL MODERN BANK BUILDING. I walked over there with the key in my right hand and in my left the fistful of diamonds‚ and I looked around for the keyhole. It was way above my head and you apparently stuck it in the door to get into the bank first. So I reached up—it was kind of a long fairly large key with grooves—at least three inches long with a pyramid shaped head. As I reached up and stuck it into the keyhole—bloop!—It disappeared right into the keyhole! The lock sucked it right in! It was the funniest thing!

8. THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN THE DOOR OPENED AND I WALKED IN and there was the key sticking out the other side of the door! So I pulled it out and she said, "Now you walk over to the vault and you stick it into that keyhole," I thought, "Boy‚ this is really a fancy–dancy bank! I never saw anything like it! I never saw such a thing!—A lock that grabs your key away and you don't get it back until after you're in the bank!—Really some safety precautions!"

9. THIS KEY WOULD GO THROUGH SOME KIND OF A CHANNEL. You could see it part of the time through the glass and it was going from one position to the other, and there were a lot of whirrings and buzzings and you could hear clicks and thumps and tumblers falling into place and bolts drawing and stuff. It was really quite interesting, and I thought, "Boy, this is sure some modern bank!" It reminded me of one of those banks where you push buttons to get cash.

10. SO THEN THE VAULT DOOR OPENED AND OUT CAME THE KEY on the other side and I took the key and walked down this little hall. There were little rooms on both sides of the hall and she told me which one was hers and I walked down and stuck the key in that door and the same thing was happening all over again! Finally the door opened automatically. It's a funny thing, for I don't remember exactly‚ but

11. I MUST HAVE PUT THE DIAMONDS IN THE SAFETY DEPOSIT BOX and left them there. I guess the reason I don't remember that was that I was so surprised to find some of our kids already there in this room—the vault—three or four of them already there! And I said, "Oh, how did you guys get in here?" And they said, "Oh, she gave us a key, too!" And I said‚ "Well, what are you doing here?" And they said, "It's such a nice little room and it's got this outside entrance too, so we thought we'd just use it for some of us to live in!" "Well", I thought, "how nice!" They said,

12. "SEE, HERE'S OUR KEY! IT OPERATES THIS REAR OUTSIDE DOOR." And I looked through this glass door and there were the grass and the trees and everything outdoors and I could see their car parked out in the parking lot. They stuck their key in the door and it swung open and they said, "We're just getting ready to go on a trip!" They were busy packing up their stuff to leave. So I was standing there sort of dumbfounded and astonished that they could be living in the bank, and I thought that was pretty nervy!

13. ANYWAY, THEY JUST RUSHED OUT AND I MUST HAVE DECIDED TO GO WITH THEM, because pretty soon I was driving along in the car with them. We drove over to the apartment house that the girl had given us to live in, the big blonde secretary girl that seemed to be so rich, and we were looking over the different quarters there to see who was going to live where, and so on.

14. ALL OF A SUDDEN THE BLONDE GIRL SHOWED UP as I was beginning to open this door and go into another apartment‚ and she said, "Oh, no no! That's my apartment! You can't have that apartment. I've got to have that apartment." Then she said‚ "Well, you'd better not use that apartment over there either." I started to open another door but she said, "Not that one either, because I rent that out to somebody else—better not use that one either."

15. APPARENTLY IT SEEMED LIKE SHE BEGAN TO HAVE SECOND THOUGHTS about letting us use some of these apartments. At first she gave us all the keys and at first she was going to let us use it all, but then she began to back down and began to think about, well, she had to have this and she had to have that, and so on.

16. SO I GAVE HER BACK THE KEYS AND WAS FEELING A LITTLE BIT SAD ABOUT IT. But anyhow we were going to put some of our things in the apartments before going on this little faith trip. So we just left them in one of the apartments that she said we could use, finally, and we left feeling kind of sorry that she seemed to be sort of backing down on some of the things she'd promised to do.

17. SUDDENLY AS WE WERE DRIVING DOWN THE ROAD HERE CAME THIS CAR CHASING AFTER US and she was trying to catch up with us. So we stopped and she said, "I'll have to have my safety deposit key too‚ because I've got some things in there myself that I don't want to lose, some things that I want to keep." Now I began to see that she was really backing out all the way, really backsliding, and sorry she'd given us anything and she wanted it all back. So I sadly handed her the key, that was the last thing‚ to the safe deposit.

18. ALL OF A SUDDEN AS I HANDED HER THE KEY, SHE AND HER CAR TURNED INTO A FROZEN BOOK with ice on the outside of it! Frozen solid as a rock! The pages were all frozen together and the covers were frozen on and all covered with ice, and you couldn't have opened it for anything! I thought of that old saying, "My life is an open book" or "My heart's an open book". But I thought, "Wow, she really has frozen up for sure, really frozen up! You couldn't crack her open for anything! And I looked at her and her car all frozen and covered with ice just like a frozen book, and I thought, "How sad, what a sad ending for her to freeze all to death like that!"

19. THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE I'M FORGETTING, what was it?—Where were we when I did that?—Oh!—There was sometime‚ it must have been when we were in the apartment house after she'd first given us the keys‚ that was it!—After she'd first given us the keys and we were starting to get settled in the apartments, everybody started making love to each other.

20. I TOOK HER IN MY ARMS AND STARTED TRYING TO MAKE LOVE TO HER BUT SHE RESISTED and was reluctant and didn't want to. That seemed to be the turning point of the whole thing, even though she'd given me the key to the safe deposit box and all that, she just wasn't willing to go all the way. In that one thing she wasn't willing to go all the way. She was reserving something, holding back in that one thing, and it finally really turned her into a closed book, a frozen book! Because then she finally backed out of everything and clammed up completely to just nothing but a hard, cold, closed‚ frozen book! Isn't that a funny dream?

21. IT'S SURE GOT SOME OBVIOUS POINTS ABOUT US SAVING THE KIDS OUT OF THE MUD‚ about the mail ministry, the logs, the news items and the testimonies being very important to our ministry. Thank God, the tall thin girl, she began throwing out her line, her long black line, and began saving the kids—pretty girl! But although this rich girl started giving us all these things‚ later she turned back and wanted it all back! It was just like one of our queens that gives us a lot of things and helps us and everything‚ but then begins to have her doubts, doesn't go all the way, and finally backs out of everything!

22. IT'S FUNNY HOW IT'S ALMOST ALWAYS TRUE OF RICH PEOPLE, isn't it?—At first they really get turned on and they want to give you everything, but after the Devil starts getting in they begin to have second thoughts about it, and they want to start taking it all back again, little by little. They start to say, "Oh no, I guess I can't let you use that after all.—Well, you better not use that either, because I've got somebody coming and they've got to take that room. I guess you'll just have to move out entirely!"—blah, blah, blah!

23. IT SEEMS LIKE RICH PEOPLE ARE ALMOST ALWAYS BACKING DOWN in the long run and backing out and getting rid of you. Its so hard for the rich to get into the kingdom! The Lord Himself said it would be harder than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle! I'll tell you, I stood there looking in dumbfounded amazement at that frozen book! She and her car and everything had turned into a block of ice!—An ice-cold, frozen, ice-covered hard cold book standing right there on the road on edge just like her car had been standing there‚ on two edges.

24. WE ALL STOOD THERE AND LOOKED AT HER SO SAD, ALL DEAD COLD AND FROZEN, no good any more‚ completely frozen, totally unusable, immobile! You couldn't have cracked it open with an ax, it was so cold and frozen so solid! I thought, "poor girl! What a horrible end, to freeze to death!" But of course that's symbolic, I'm sure, including all the rest of the fancy dancy stuff about the bank and all, it all must have had some symbolism.

25. IN OTHER WORDS, ALL THAT LUXURY AND EVERYTHINGS ISN'T NECESSARILY ALWAYS GOOD FOR US, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE GIVERS SO OFTEN WANT IT BACK! So learn to never count on it very long, especially when the rich are giving it, because they're quite often Indian-givers—they want it back again! So she finally just turned into a closed, cold, frozen, ice–covered‚ dead book that you couldn't even read any more!

26. I GUESS THAT'S THE WAY SOME PEOPLE FEEL: THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO READ THEM ANYMORE, they don't want you to know their hearts anymore. At first she really opened up to us and received us warmly. But finally she just closed up‚ clammed up‚ froze over, completely closed and cold and frozen—dead! How horrible! That kind of a backslider is terrible! I was so astonished when I saw that frozen book sitting there all dead and cold and icy, unable to open anymore!

27. WHAT A SAD ENDING! The Bible says it would be better for them never to have heard, than to have heard and rejected, gone back, He so abhors them that turn back! "He that putting his hand to the plow and even looking back," He says, "is not worthy of Me!" (Luke 9:62). This rich blonde girl was like that: she began to look back at the value of her apartments and then her safety deposit box and apparently finally her car. She was coming to get the keys to them all, and that's why she was chasing after us to pick up all the keys.

28. SO THE LORD JUST LET HER FREEZE COMPLETELY! That has happened to some people who went back: They never amounted to anything after that, just froze up completely! They always say they're going to serve the Lord someplace else or something, but they go all the way back instead. Why, they freeze up even worse than ever before, go back on the Lord, back completely to selfish living‚ the world, and are never any more good to anybody!

29. THANK GOD A FEW HAVE COME BACK, REPENTED AND WARMED UP by the Spirit of God, have opened up again and were useful again, but very few. Most of them are like the man whose end was worse than his beginning! Once he got cleaned out of his one devil, because he didn't keep busy and filled with the Spirit of God and was selfish and kept his house to himself‚ the devil went and brought seven other devils worse than himself, and the end of the man was worse than his beginning!

30. I'LL TELL YOU, AS I LOOKED AT THAT HARD COLD FROZEN ICE COVERED BOOK standing there on the road on edge where she and her car had been‚ I though, "My God, what a horrible ending, to freeze to death!"—But I guess that's really what happens to people spiritually that really go back and stay back!

31. SOME BACKSLIDERS EVEN GROW SO COLD AND HARD THEY ACTUALLY TURN AGAINST US and become bitter enemies!—Cold, hard, frozen, brittle, sharp and dangerous!—Their hearts are closed frozen books you can never use or open again—stone cold and lifeless!—Hard as a rock! What a horrible fate! What an end!—Are you slowly becoming a hard, cold, stoney, closed frozen book?—I hope not!

32. IF YOU FEEL YOU'RE GROWING COLD, don't take a chance, don't wait!—Get back to the warmth of the Word, the fire of the Fire–bird, God's hot Holy Ghost! Come back to the warmth of the loving hearts of the burning hearths of one of our Heavenly Homes and get on fire for Jesus again as you set others on fire with His love!

33. DON'T LET IT HAPPEN TO YOU!—DON'T BE A FROZEN BOOK! Or you may never be able to open your heart again to His love, a useful epistle read by all men to bring them the story of Jesus and His love.

34. COME BACK TODAY BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!—The warm loving fires of our hearts and hearths are still open to you if you're really sorry, repent and come home again!—Like the old hymn, "Jesus Is Calling!":

35. "COME HOME, COME HOME!—

Ye who are weary come home!—

Earnestly, tenderly Jesus is calling,

Calling‚ O Sinner, —Come home!"

36. "YE ARE OUR EPISTLE WRITTEN IN OUR HEARTS‚ known and read of all men! Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart." (2Cor.3:2 & 3).

37. "AND I SAW THE DEAD, small and great‚ stand before God: and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works." (Rev.20:12)

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family