—MOAPRIL 26, 1976DO No.567

—Will it be the age of Flirty Fishing?

Copyrighted February 1977 by the Children of God

1. WE'RE NOW IN THE AGE OF AQUARIUS BUT THERE'S GOING TO BE ONE MORE AGE. I was looking at the way the astrologers arrange the signs of the Zodiac, and according to the Bible they correspond to the months of the year.

2. ARIES CORRESPONDS TO THE FIRST MONTH of the year which was their first month which is April, and then it goes around the astrological clock until the Age of Aquarius, the Age of water, just before Pisces.

3. PISCES THEN IS THE LAST ONE, then begins Aries again. Well‚ what does it mean then that we are at the end of this age, the Age of Aquarius, in which the water of the Word is being spread throughout the world?—Water for the fish!

4. WHAT THEN IS THE AGE OF PISCES? Well now, the fish was a sign of the Christians when they were under persecution, they used that as a secret sign to indicate that they were Christians, they would hang the sign on their door. In the symbol of Pisces there are two kinds of fish, one goes one direction and one goes the other, and that to me is significant.

5. DOES THIS THEN REPRESENT THE FOLLOWING AGE LIKE THE TRIBULATION WHEN THE CHURCH IS UNDER PERSECUTION AGAIN as it was during the sign of the Fish under the Romans‚ when the Christians used that as an identifying sign, a secret sign, fish. Fish‚ think of that, fish! That fish must been pretty important to Christians in those days to even use it as their sign of begin a Christian. In other words they were fishermen! Fishing was their most important business—fishing for men.

6. I'M SURE IN THE AGE OF THE TRIBULATION AND PERSECUTION THE FISH ARE GOING TO GO EITHER ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, opposite directions. Either they're going to submit and yield and even deny their faith, or they're going to buck the current, swim upstream against everything. If you've studied Pisces at all you know that fish can either drift with the current or buck the current and swim upstream, the strong.

7. PISCES CAN BE EITHER WEAK OR STRONG, THEY'RE TORN BETWEEN THEIR CHOICES OF SWIMMING UPSTREAM OR DRIFTING DOWNSTREAM. So that's interesting. (Maria: Also appropriate for us because of flirty-fishing, the bait's one fish and the soul we're trying to win is the other. )

8. DOES THIS MEAN THAT FOLLOWING THIS SPREAD OF THE WATER right now representing the Word which we are pouring out to the whole world that this season is now going to be followed by an age of real fishing and hand-picked catching of fish, more than the spread of literature and the word that way?

9. TODAY WE'RE FLOODING THE EARTH WITH OUR DOCTRINE, OUR LITERATURE, but the day is soon coming, I believed with all my heart, that more and more countries are going to be closed where we can't litness anymore and we're going to have to do this kind of witnessing and fishing to win Souls, and there are some people with us now who say‚

10. "WELL THEN, HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET OUR INCOME WHEN WE CAN'T LITNESS anymore?" Well, I'm sure some of you can remember the years we travelled, two years on the road, when we never sold a pieces of literature and God supplied our needs for a colony of over a hundred people travelling in all kinds of vehicles costing thousands of dollars for gasoline and everything else, and we never missed a meal and never missed having something to eat, right?—Before we ever sold a single piece of literature!

11. MY FAMILY‚ MY CHILDREN, TRAVELLED FOR YEARS WITHOUT SELLING A PIECE OF LITERATURE or anything, just trusting God for every meal, every need, and God never failed to supply all of our needs.

12. GOD WILL SUPPLY OUR NEEDS AS LONG AS WE'RE FAITHFUL WITNESSES, whatever kind of witnessing we're able to do or unable to do, He supplies. Two or three years before we even sold any literature, we never really lacked anything did we? He always supplied our needs didn't He? The Lord supplied, thank You Jesus!

13. WE NEVER KNEW WHERE IT WAS COMING FROM‚ it came from all kinds of different sources—sometimes through the mail‚ sometimes a gift in the hand, sometimes a forsake-all, sometimes an inheritance, sometimes this, that, new disciples—you never knew where it was coming from, but God always supplied, He never failed, amen?

14. NOW THE KIDS HAVE GOTTEN SO DEPENDENT ON LITERATURE THEY THINK THERE'S NO OTHER WAY to supply it and they forget all the rest of the things and they neglect their kings, they neglect their friends, they neglect the mail, they neglect other kinds of witnessing and everything else—including flirty-fishing!

15. WELL, THE LORD MAY ONE OF THESE DAYS SOON CONFINE THEM TO WHERE THEY CAN'T LITNESS. In a number of countries already we can't litness but we could go in like we're doing here.—Especially Arab countries.

16. IF EVERY DOOR CLOSES AND THIS IS THE ONLY KIND OF FISHING WE'LL BE ABLE TO DO, WE BETTER START LEARNING HOW to do it! How to witness this way under Selah conditions, under closed-country conditions where we can't litness, where we can't even let people know who we are or what we are or brag about colony life or anything. "Oh, we're those great people, Children of God, blah, blah, Moses is our prophet!"—We can't do any of those things anymore when that time comes.

17. THEY JUST HAVE TO COME AND SEE OUR FAMILY AND HOW WE LIVE and see for themselves. And they know it's different, they know it's something unusual. you don't have to give them any names, they don't even have to read the lit, they get the point, even in Selah Colonies.

18. SO, I BELIEVED WE'RE AGAIN PIONEERING A NEW FIELD, a new type of witnessing which is going to be very important and the day is probably coming when, like that Dutch nurse in the Nazi prison camp, who ministered her body to those Nazi officials and won their hearts as a result, when our girls are going to have to do the same thing.

19. IF YOU'RE NOT PREPARED TO DO IT NOW and you're going to balk and balk against it now‚ you're not going to be any good then. You're not going to change just because of the circumstances. If you don't have enough love to do it now for your friends, how are you going to have enough love to do it for your enemies? The day is coming when you may have to do it for your enemies! That would certainly fulfil Jesus' commandment to "Love thine enemies"! (Mat.5:44.)—Amen?

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family