—MOJuly 1976DFO NO.546

Copyrighted September 1976 by the Children of God

1. DO YOU LOVE LOST SOULS or don't you?—That's the question! One of our friends told us he was leaving today for a trip, but we even forgot all about him. Yesterday he was supposed to come to the house to say goodbye and we even forgot that he was coming. That's one thing about having the Lord, if you're in good communications with the Lord, a good channel, He doesn't let you forget for long.

2. SO TO REMIND US TO PRAY for this boy, even though we forgot about him yesterday when he was supposed to come, the Lord had to tell us about it last night in my sleep! Maybe the Lord's trying to teach us a lesson in neglect‚ to show you how, though we forget about him, God didn't forget about him. Hallelujah! Thank you Lord! God not only didn't forget about him but He reminded us very strongly to pray for him.

3. LAST NIGHT I WAS SO TOTALLY ENTRANCED or asleep that I didn't even know it happened. I mean I didn't know a thing about this! I didn't even know I had heard or thought about this boy. I hadn't even thought about this boy. I hadn't even thought about him in my own head. I had no recollection of even thinking about him at all. Apparently I didn't even have a dream about him. Though we haven't been that worried about him.

4. IT SHOWS HOW PRECIOUS HE IS TO THE LORD! I mean we've known him for two years and he's been up and down and up and down. But apparently since the day he was here several weeks ago and received the Lord, now he's our baby, we're responsible for him and we must not forget to pray for him.

5. YOU'D BE SURPRISED HOW MUCH GOD DEPENDS ON YOUR PRAYERS, how concerned you are and how interested you are. You're His hands, His feet, His eyes and His heart‚ and if you don't love them God still loves them, but they'll suffer from your neglect. Maria was asking me the other day,

6. "IF WE SHOULD FAIL IN OUR FOLLOW–UP OF THESE NEW CONVERTS, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THEM?" I said‚ well, orphans usually survive, but they usually live a pretty hard life. God sees to it that somebody takes care of them‚ but quite often their personalities are injured or their spirits are hurt.

7. HOW MANY ORPHANS have you heard of that grew up bitter against the world because they had no mother and father and bitter against God because nobody loved them? Orphans usually survive but they usually grow up rather bitter and unhappy because nobody really took care of them‚ no one took an interest in them, they had no mother and father.

8. PRAYER IS POWERFUL! When we pray things will happen and things will be different. God will answer prayer. But God said to Israel one time that bad things were happening because He said,

9."NO MAN STIRRETH HIMSELF TO CALL UPON ME!" (Isa.64:7.) My Mother told me of an incident that happened to an old missionary who was preaching in China in the pulpit one Sunday morning and the communists invaded the town, threw open the front doors of the church and just mowed the people down with machine guns including the preacher in the pulpit, a horrible horrible massacre!

10. HERE WERE ALL THESE CHRISTIANS OF THIS SMALL VILLAGE IN CHINA TOTALLY MASSACRED! My Mother was horrified when she heard the news! She asked, "God, why? Why did You let that happen to all those precious Chinese Christians and that pastor, a good missionary that's gone clear to China to evangelise them!

11. "WHY LORD?" She was kind of angry with the Lord. "Why did You let that happen?" And God spoke back to her just as clear as she ever heard the voice of the Lord:

12. "BECAUSE MY PEOPLE PRAY NOT for My missionaries!" There is God passing back the buck! We're trying to blame God, but He's putting the responsibility on you! Now if you can pray and your prayers can change things, then if things are not changed it's your fault for not praying and believing and asking God to do something else.

13. SO WHY DON'T YOU PRAY? Why don't you believe God? Why don't you ask Him to change things? You feel guilty because you haven't prayed enough and you determine you're going to pray more and them you desperately cry out to God, and boom, boom, boom! The Holy Spirit goes to work right away and we begin to see some action!

14. BELOVED, WHEN WE GET TO HEAVEN one of these days we're going to find out a lot of these things were not the Devil's fault or God's fault that they didn't happen or they did happen, but they were our fault because we failed to pray!

15. THE LORD ANSWERS YOUR PRAYERS, SO WHY DON'T YOU PRAY? Well, honestly we didn't pray for this boy because we had so many other things to think about, business meetings and all kinds of things—we just forgot about him. Apparently we don't love him enough or we wouldn't have forgotten him.

16. BUT GOD DIDN'T FORGET HIM and I'm sure God gave this little revelation as a reminder to pray for him as well as to teach you a lesson and to show you what the major essentials are that every new convert needs. This little revelation gives you the whole story‚ believe it or not.

17.THERE ARE FOUR OR FIVE MAJOR THINGS A NEW CONVERT NEEDS: First of all, just the fact we got the message shows that they need prayer, God was reminding us to pray for him. You need to ask God to help them. I hadn't even been thinking about this boy, but God punches right through in my sleep and talks to us about him! It's a rebuke from the Lord. Listen to what He says—read it, Maria: (Maria reads the revelation:

18. "YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO?") In other words, you know what you can do—not that you will do, but what you could do if you tried, if you wanted to, what you can do. God's talking about your power, what you can do if you want to.

19. (MARIA: "YOU CAN TRADE THE KNIFE WITH HIM!") Actually Maria at first thought I said, "You can treasure the life of Raul," which is significant also. But what I actually said in my sleep was, "You can trade the knife with Raul, because he shouldn't be carrying a knife. You can trade the knife"—trade knives!—Think of that!

20. GOD AND HIS WORD ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN THAT SWITCHBLADE he carries in his pocket. (Maria: "You can trade it for love.") Trade it first of all for love! Now what is the knife representative of? It represents fear, right? Fear and hate, right? The knife represents his fear of his enemies and his hatred for them or their hatred for him.

21. BUT YOU CAN TRADE ALL THIS FOR WHAT?—LOVE! What is it that "casts out all fear"?—"Perfect love casts out all fear!" (1John 4:18.) Isn't that beautiful? What a beautiful lesson the Lord teaches us! So what's the next thing that a new convert needs besides prayer?

22. HE NEEDS A LOT OF LOVE to bring him out of his fear and his hate and so on. You need to trade your love for his fears and hates. (Maria reads:

23. "AND THEN YOU CAN GIVE HIM ANOTHER BIGGER ONE so that he can get in the door without knocking!") Then you can give him another bigger knife, a much bigger knife! What do they call a knife when it gets that big?—A sword! What's that symbolic of? The Word, of course!

24. THE WORD, HE NEEDS THE WORD, right? He needs prayer, he needs love and he needs the Word! Aren't these the things new converts need the most? But what in the world does that mean, "So he can get in the door without knocking"? Well,

25. WHO'S THE DOOR?—JESUS! Yes, but you say he's already gone through the Door, he's already saved, he's already gone through the Door. Yes, but he is such a new babe he still feels like a stranger. "So he can get in the door without knocking."

26. WHERE DO YOU KNOCK? Do you knock on the door of your own house where you feel at home? Whose door do you knock on? Somebody else's door, somebody else's home where you feel like you're a stranger! He's so new to the house of God we still let him feel like a stranger.

27. SO WHAT ELSE DOES HE NEED? What does this symbolise so he'll feel he can get in the Door without knocking? He'll know by the Word, by the sword, that he can get in the Door without knocking, that he can pass through Jesus anytime into the house of God—he doesn't have to knock.

28. WHAT IS THE HOUSE? If Jesus is the Door, what's the house? What's a door without a house? Well, when He said "I'm the Door," what was He talking about in the illustration He was using?

29. A SHEEPFOLD! What is a sheepfold? It's a house where the sheep live. The other guys when they come here they don't feel like they've got to knock before they go in the door, they just walk in. Of course they ring the bell because we've got to unlock the gate.

30. BUT HAVE YOU HAD ANY OF THEM COME HERE AND KNOCK on the house door before they went in?—Not unless they felt like strangers or they weren't one of the family. So what's this a symbol of, that you go in a door without knocking?

31. YOU'RE AT HOME! He needs to be made to feel at home, that we're his family and this is home!

32. SO WHAT DOES THAT MEAN THAT HE NEEDS?—FELLOWSHIP. Fellowship with the family! So does that just about take care of all the things a new convert needs? Can you name them now?

33. PRAYER, LOVE, THE WORD, JESUS AND FELLOWSHIP! It's like Jesus is in him, but he's got to get into Jesus now and he's got to know that he doesn't have to knock.

34. HE CAN FEEL AT HOME NOW anytime to go into the house, and that he's a member of the Family and he doesn't have to beg and pray or knock. or anything. It's his house‚ he can walk in anytime he wants to. He carries his knife for protection.

35. BUT HE NEEDS TO TRADE HIS KNIFE FOR THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT! When you asked me how I knew Raul carried a knife I just knew, that's all. Maybe it was Abrahim telling me, I mean Abrahim doesn't have to explain to us how he knows, he can probably see through Raul's pockets! (Maria reads:

36. "HE HAS REAL FEAR IN HIS EYES. Only when he's with us is he happy.") Now that would explain why he always has said from the very beginning‚ "Everytime I come to sit with you folks at your table, when I'm with you folks I just have perfect peace, perfect peace!"

37. IN OTHER WORDS HE MUST WORRY A LOT or fear a lot. He says, "I don't understand it, but when I sit and listen to you I'm happy and I have perfect peace!" The power of the Holy Spirit‚ Beloved! You don't realise how much power you've got!

38. DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF GOD! Even in our presence people can feel it! Then in my sleep Maria asked me, "Then why doesn't he come with us more, why doesn't he come around more often?" And Abrahim or whoever was speaking said,

39. "IT COSTS HIM TOO MUCH!" We know he doesn't have much money and transportation is expensive here, but maybe it costs in other ways too, It costs quite a bit to serve the Lord. But the Lord was faithful, even though we forgot about him and failed to pray for him.

40. LOOK WHAT A LESSON THE LORD GAVE US! The Lord didn't forget him and spoke right out of the blue to remind us about him and what we're supposed to do for him and for others like him! Isn't that wonderful? Praise the Lord! Thank You Lord! Thank You Jesus!

41. ARE YOU GIVING THEM PRAYER, LOVE‚ THE WORD, JESUS AND FELLOWSHIP? If not, you're failing God and begetting poor little parentless homeless starving orphans! Why not start today! Pray‚ love‚ trade knives, open the door and let'em in!—Amen?

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family