—MOJuly 2, 1977DONO.605

—How Far does it Go?—Is FFing Legal?—What About Persecution?

Copyrighted October 1977 by the Children of God

C.P. 748, 00100 Rome, Italy.

1. IN OUR EARLY DAYS THE CHURCHES CONDEMNED US FOR GOING INTO BARS TO WITNESS AND WIN SOULS!—And still do! But we said, "But that's where the lost souls are, that's where the hungry ones are, that's where the fishing is good!"—"Ah, but a Christian shouldn't be seen going in and out of a bar!—That's a terrible testimony!"

2. WELL, WHEN IT COMES TO THE POINT THAT YOU EVEN HAVE TO FOREGO WITNESSING LEST YOU CAUSE SOME WEAK NARROW-MINDED CHRISTIAN TO STUMBLE, THEN THAT'S WHERE YOU HAVE TO DRAW THE LINE AND GO AHEAD! If it means you are going to be hampered and all kinds of obstacles put in your way to keep you from doing God's will just because of the petty peeves of some persnickety narrow-minded self–righteous Christians, then forget it!

3. YOU CAN'T PLEASE EVERYBODY! LOOK AT JESUS!—HE WENT AROUND AND BROKE THE RULES RIGHT AND LEFT, WHILE THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, THE HYPOCRITICAL RELIGIONISTS, WERE ACCUSING HIM AT EVERY TURN! Right? But He didn't stop it! He didn't stop the good He was doing! Because they had to learn that it was by grace and not works! They had to learn that the Lord is also Lord of the Sabbath, and that it was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and that if He wants to break it, that's His business!

4. GOD IS ALSO GOD OF THE BODY, THE GOD OF SEX—HE MADE IT! He's the God of all things, so if He wants to set up new rules for accomplishing His purpose He is perfectly able to do it! As far as we're concerned, we are now liberated, totally liberated from the old out-dated Mosaic moral code, if whatever we do we do it in love!

5. HERE WE ARE GOING DOWN INTO THE CLUBS AND WINNING SOULS and changing lives and getting those people out of the garbage‚ salvaging them from the trash of this world! We may have to get a little bit dirty in the process by even having to go to bed with them sometimes!

6. BUT AT THE SAME TIME HERE IS THE LAZY CHURCH AND NON-WITNESSING CHRISTIANS AND OTHER SELF-RIGHTEOUS HYPOCRITES CONDEMNING US FOR IT! "Ah, that's bad! You shouldn't go into those bars, you shouldn't be drinking with the sinners, you shouldn't be going to bed with those dirty wicked people!"—and so on. "This is bad!"

7. "THIS IS BREAKING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, THIS IS BREAKING THE MOSAIC MORAL CODE, THE LAWS OF THE CHURCH!" (Maria: Yes, "This is being unequally yoked together with unbelievers!") "This is doing evil! You're doing evil! Ah, you are bad!"—Well, what are we going to do?

8. WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT?—TO PLEASE THESE NARROW-MINDED RELIGIONISTS OR GOD! Which is better, as Peter said, to please man or God , judge ye! (Acts 4:19 and 5:29.) The disciples were breaking the Mosaic laws and defying the hypocritical powers that be because they had a greater power, a greater authority, a greater mission, so they did exactly what Jesus did!

9. THE PHARISEES ALSO WERE ACCUSING JESUS OF HEALING PEOPLE ON THE SABBATH, and said, "This is breaking the law! This is working on the Sabbath!"—Think of it! How ridiculous can you get? Jesus asked them, "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil?" (Mk.2; Lk.6 & 13)

10. SO LIKEWISE PEOPLE CONDEMN US FOR DOING GOOD WORK, SAVING SOULS IN THE CLUBS! But your work and its accomplishments‚ the fruits thereof, are so much greater than the supposed evil they think you're doing.

11. YOU CANNOT STOP SAVING SOULS JUST BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE CONDEMN YOUR METHODS! You cannot stop your ministry‚ you cannot stop the message just because some people condemn your method. If God has blessed the method with good fruit‚ then the method is good, amen?

12. I'M NOT SAYING "LET US DO EVIL THAT GOOD MAY COME." (Rom.3:8.) I'm saying that they're saying it's evil. We're not saying it's evil—we believe it's good because it bears good fruit, right? (Maria: You can't forgo witnessing just because it's stumbling your brother who is already a Christian...) and stop saving a soul! Exactly!

13. WE CANNOT STOP SAVING SOULS JUST BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE DON'T LIKE OUR METHODS! We can't stop saving souls even if it's against the law! There are laws that I have told students for years that you have every right to break: Any law which forbids you to confess Christ and to witness and to win souls!

14. ANY LAW WHICH IS AGAINST THE GOSPEL IS AGAINST GOD! Such a law is of man and/or the Devil, and you've got a perfect right to break any law that tries to either hinder you or prevent you or forbid you or prohibit you from witnessing and winning souls!

15. ANY KIND OF CIVIL LAW THAT WOULD FORBID YOU to use the method that you're using, such as any law against your passing out tracts on the streets, or any law against your witnessing to people, or any law against your preaching the Gospel‚ or any law against your going door-to–door as the Jehovah's Witnesses do, is invalid to God!

16. THEY'VE FOUGHT THESE LAWS THROUGH THE COURTS time and time again and clear up to the Supreme Court several times.—So have the Seventh-day Adventists, because they're both strong witnessing groups and they go door-to-door, witnessing on the streets and so on.

17. THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF LAWS OF MAN THAT HAVE BEEN PASSED TO TRY TO PREVENT WITNESSING, LAWS OF THE DEVIL! Well, you can't obey those laws! We have gone right ahead and done it anyhow and gone to court for it and gone to jail for it as a part of our persecution, just like we're doing now! We're having to go to court, risking jail, risking punishment and everything for what some of them consider "breaking the law"!

18. WELL‚ THEY HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO PROVE WE'RE BREAKING ANY LAW YET, THANK GOD! But just the same they're trying to find something! It's just the same old story of Jesus and His accusers over again:

19. THEY KEPT SEEKING "SOMETHING WHEREWITH THEY MIGHT ACCUSE HIM" and condemn Him—in other words to get Him before the law.—Not because they cared about the petty little infractions of the ridiculous laws—that wasn't really what they were worried about.

20. THEY WERE INFURIATED BECAUSE HE WAS EXPOSING THEM! He was doing something much worse than breaking the Sabbath: He was exposing their wickedness, their hypocrisy, their self-righteousness and showing to the public what monsters the hypocrites themselves were!

21. OUR LITTLE GIRLS GOING DOWN TO THAT CLUB AND WINNING SOULS TO JESUS, and dancing with them in order to win them, and even loving them‚ and going to bed with them if necessary, is not what our enemies are really mad at. They're picking on these things, but they're mere little lying excuses!

22. THE THINGS THAT THEY ARE REALLY CONCERNED‚ SCARED, WORRIED AND ANGRY ABOUT IS THAT WE ARE THEREBY EXPOSING THEM! We're showing that their religion hasn't got enough love to go that far to win people to God! Their religion hasn't got enough love to go down to the bars and preach the Gospel!

23. THEIR RELIGION HASN'T GOT ENOUGH LOVE TO GO TO BED WITH A SINNER TO SAVE HIS SOUL, TO GO TO BED WITH HIS BODY TO SAVE HIS SOUL! (Maria: Their religion doesn't even have enough love to give their own wives the grace to make love to their own husbands!) Exactly!

24. MOST CHURCHES ARE SO AGAINST SEX THAT THEY SEEM TO THINK IT'S JUST A SORT OF IRRESISTIBLE EVIL, a kind of a has-to-be-tolerated sin in order to fuck your own wife so that you might have some children for the Church!

25. THE AVERAGE CHURCH ATTITUDE IS THAT SEX IS STILL SIN EVEN IN THE MARRIAGE BED! It's still "carnal", still "fleshly", therefore it's really still wicked and sinful no matter where it is or who it's with! So they've carried that thing so damn far in the wrong direction that there's no possibility of ever pleasing them in any way about sex!

26. A WIFE, ACCORDING TO CHURCH TEACHING, DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE, IS NOT SUPPOSED TO ENJOY FUCKING! She's not supposed to get any pleasure out of it‚ as all pleasure is sin! She is supposed to simply put up with it and bear with it in order that she might bear children! That's exactly the attitude that most churches take! So we've just gone to the opposite extreme. So what's the difference?

27. YOU CAN'T PLEASE THEM AT ALL NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU GO WITH THEM, SO WHY TRY TO PLEASE THEM AT ALL? I mean, if it was something unimportant like a little wine or a little meat or something like that, why‚ we don't have to do it in front of them and make them stumble.

28. —BUT WE'RE SURE NOT GOING TO STOP WITNESSING! We are not going to stop giving out the message! We are not going to stop preaching the Gospel! We are not going to stop winning souls just because some of these little two-bit narrow-minded finicky-persnickety holier-than-thou self-righteous hypocrites condemn us for the method we use!

29. (MARIA: BUT ON THE OTHER HAND YOU WOULDN'T ADVISE THE KIDS TO GO PASSING OUT TRACTS OR LETTERS ON A STREET IN A CITY WHERE IT WASN'T PERMITTED, if they had another street in the city where it was permitted.) Of course! (Maria: Or if they weren't allowed to pass out letters at all in the city‚ if they could do another type of witnessing.) Of course!

30. THERE'S NO USE OF YOUR LOOKING FOR TROUBLE and just bringing down the wrath of the powers that be on your head for no reason—this is what I always say. You've got a perfect right before God to be out there passing tracts and preaching the Gospel in the park, but if you want to be so bold as to defy any possible rules to the contrary, it may only land you in jail or a fine, and what good is that going to do?

31. OR IF YOU'VE GOT THE POWER, THE ORGANISATION AND THE MONEY TO FIGHT IT THROUGH THE COURTS and you want to make a big case out of it because that is your whole ministry and you don't want to flee‚ you must be willing to go to court and pay the price and fight it through and you may still lose!—Jesus said, "Flee!"

32. AND I'VE TOLD YOU KIDS, WE DON'T WANT TO HAVE ANY UNNECESSARY HASSLES WITH THE LAW. If the cop on this corner tells you to stop passing out tracts, it's against the law here, then go to some other corner where there's either no cop or another cop who doesn't mind.

33. WE HAVE ALSO USUALLY TAUGHT YOU, DON'T NORMALLY ASK FOR OFFICIAL PERMISSION, because if it is against the law they'll have to forbid you, even though they would usually rather just over look it and ignore it and look the other way and let you go ahead than to have a hassle, because they themselves personally don't care.

34. I WAS AMAZED AT SOME OF OUR KIDS ASKING PERMISSION of the cop on the corner to do this, but that's wonderful when they allow them, that's fine!—But what about the places where they won't allow you? (Maria: Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists have to do that—that's the only method they have to witness, so if it was cut off they'd be lost!

35. BUT WE HAVE OTHER WAYS TO WITNESS.) Exactly! (Maria: So‚ like in Tenerife where we couldn't do it one way we did it another!) In Tenerife we did not think that it was wise for the sake of my security for us to get out on the streets there and pass out literature.

36. SO WE CHOSE A MEANS WHICH WE FELT WAS MORE CLANDESTINE, MORE "UNDER THE COVERS," so to speak, whereby we could witness without it being against the law, without it being forbidden, without it possibly causing us trouble.

37. BUT EVEN THAT KIND OF WITNESSING FINALLY GOT US IN TROUBLE because the Devil didn't like it, it was getting such good fruit and so much fruit. The Devil became furious because we were circumventing the rules in a way and getting across a ministry that was fruitful and winning souls in spite of the usual rules.

38. WE WERE DOING IT IN SUCH A WAY THAT AT FIRST IT WAS NOT ENDANGERING OUR SECURITY because they didn't know who I was or anything else. Of course finally when it all came out in the open in the headlines and front pages of the newspapers, well, that was a different story!

39. THEN WE GOT TOO MUCH PUBLICITY TO SUIT THE POWERS THAT BE‚ and it made them angry, because it was just like rubbing their noses in it and slapping them in the face with it. As long as they didn't have to read it on the front page of the newspaper every morning they didn't mind so much.

40. THEY HAD HEARD ABOUT IT AND THEY'D IGNORED IT and the local police tolerated it because we weren't breaking any laws. But the minute we began to really rub the Bishop's nose in it and slapping him in the face every morning with another article about the Family of Love and exposing his hypocrisy, he had to get us! He had to do something. So he stirred up the powers that be, which is always the way it happens.

41. THE FALSE CHURCH ALWAYS STIRS UP THE GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE TRUE CHURCH, and I'm sure that this is what it was. I think maybe now that woman I saw in the dream was like the woman that John saw in his vision of the Great Whore in Revelation 17. She was probably not any specific woman but maybe symbolic of the church.

42. SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL, SHE WAS OLD‚ mature, refined, cultured and high class, but dancing up and down like a demon‚ pointing her finger at us and howling with glee because she was causing us trouble.

43. SO IT'S ALWAYS THE FALSE CHURCH WHO STIRS UP THE POLITICAL GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE TRUE CHURCH. Until that time, the politicians and the police and the government couldn't have cared less. Some were merely curious about something new, others liked it because they came to us for it, and we were kind of their little homegrown pet amusement, entertainment or diversion.

44. BUT AS SOON AS THE FALSE CHURCH WITH ALL ITS POWER AND PULL BEGAN TO FIGHT US, IT STIRRED UP THE GOVERNMENT AGAINST US and insisted that they do something about it—just exactly the same way the High Priest and the Scribes and the Pharisees stirred up the Romans against Jesus and brought Him before Pilate to accuse Him,

45. BECAUSE HE WAS A THREAT TO THEIR RELIGION, He was a threat to their own respectability. He stripped them and exposed their hypocrisy. So it's not even really the message or the method which they care that much about.

46. IT'S WHEN IT BEGINS TO HURT THEM BY EXPOSING THEIR SELF-RIGHTEOUS HYPOCRISY and show that we have more love than they have. They pretend to be God's messengers and Christ's people, but our little simple, humble girls down at the club were showing the world they had more love than the Church, more sacrifice, could suffer more crucifixion and persecution to win and save souls and put across the message of God than the Church was!

47. WHAT I FOUND OUT IN THE EARLY DAYS OF PREACHING PERSONAL WITNESSING was that the guys who condemned us for it and preached against it the most were the churches who didn't want to do it! Because if they have to agree that what you're doing is okay, then they've got to do it too—and they don't want to!

48. THE CHURCH DOESN'T EVEN LIKE THEIR WOMEN GOING TO BED WITH THEIR HUSBANDS, MUCH LESS ANYBODY ELSE! The Church wants to control everything, and they control most of their men through the women! You go in the average Church and most of what you'll see there is women.

49. THE CHURCH CONTROLS THE WOMEN‚ AND THEY CONTROL THE MEN THROUGH THE WOMEN THROUGH SEX, the denial of sex etc. They often make a woman deny her husband sex to get him to obey. Time and again it's been told us by the men‚ that the priest told wives: "Don't let him have any sex for so long as a punishment for what he's doing," and so on.

50. THE CHURCH CONTROLS THE MEN THROUGH THE WOMEN THROUGH SEX. And here they were controlling people through prohibition of sex, when all of a sudden they find we're winning people through permissiveness of sex! That was contrary to their whole doctrine‚ their whole structure, and so they felt it could begin to undermine their control.

51. THE CHURCH HAD BEEN TEACHING THE PEOPLE THAT IF THEY DO THESE THINGS THEY'RE GOING TO HELL. BUT WE COME ALONG TEACHING PEOPLE IF THEY'LL DO IT IN LOVE THEY CAN HELP PEOPLE GO TO HEAVEN—JUST THE OPPOSITE! So this suddenly liberates the people from their control, and that's what they don't like! Jesus' message was liberating the people from the control of the High Priests and the bigshot religionists‚ the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees.

52. JESUS' MESSAGE WAS LIBERATING THE PEOPLE and helping them thumb their noses now at the churches, synagogues and religious leaders: "Who needs you? We don't need you anymore! We don't need your church, we don't have to go to church on Sunday, we don't have to be under your thumbs anymore, we don't have to do what you say!

53. "ALL WE HAVE TO DO NOW IS BELIEVE AND LOVE GOD AND OUR NEIGHBOUR AS OURSELVES! That's all we have to do! We don't have to keep your laws, your regulations‚ go to your temple, your ceremonies—none of it anymore!" This is what Jesus' teaching literally meant—and Paul's too! It snatched the people out from under the established religion's control.

54. IT GAVE THE PEOPLE LIBERTY, IT GAVE THEM FREEDOM! Now they were free, because all they needed was Jesus, all they needed was love! All they needed was to "Love God and love thy neighbour—in this is all the law and all the prophets!" And that just jerks the rug out from underneath the church system and its religious leaders and the whole works!—Forms, rites, ceremonies, traditions, rituals and all!

55. THAT MEANS THE END OF CHURCH POWER AND CONTROL OVER THE PEOPLE! This is the threat, that if the people believe our doctrine‚ the Church is going to be powerless to control them! What man is going to go to church and be bound by all their stupid regulations, restrictions and prohibitions if instead he can come to our club and get all the love and sex he needs and still go to Heaven!

56. HE CAN FIND TRUE LOVE INSTEAD, AND MAKE IT ANYWAY! He can have peace and satisfaction and happiness and joy and love and freedom without all that churchianity and church folderol! The Church knows what a threat we are to their System! They have controlled sex for ages by controlling marriage, sexual relations, laws, etc.

57. IN SOME COUNTRIES YOU CAN'T EVEN GET MARRIED WITHOUT THE CHURCH! So it's only been recently you could even get married in some without the church.—You had to have a church wedding or it was illegal. So that the church has controlled matrimony, and through matrimonial laws and sexual prohibitions, has controlled sex for a long time.

58. WELL NOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN THEY'RE SCARED STIFF! We've exposed that their system is phoney, false! If they agree with our system and our method and our message‚ they've got to admit theirs is phoney!

59. SO THEY HAVE EITHER GOT TO AGREE WITH US AND DO IT, OR THEY HAVE GOT TO CONDEMN US AND FIGHT IT! So neither will they do it nor will they permit their people to do it. "You're either for Me‚" Jesus said, "or you're against Me!"—one or the other, that's just the way it works. (Mat.12:30.)

60. WE ARE STRIKING AT THEIR VERY FOUNDATION: DICTATORIAL CONTROL OF THE PEOPLE FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE! Our message is that you don't have to go to church on Sunday, you don't have to have church buildings, you don't need rituals.

61. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS BE CHRISTIANS AND WITNESS AND WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST PERSONALLY. That's your religious obligation, that's your religious duty—not merely going to church, not merely supporting the churches. Therefore our message is striking at the very foundation of the whole churchy System, the Churchianity System.

62. SO THEY ARE GOING TO BE OUT AND FIGHTING YOU TOOTH AND TONG TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AND THEIR CHURCH SYSTEM, otherwise their whole system's going to collapse‚ because your truth is destroying their lie and they dare not let you get away with it! They will fight!—And they did!

63. THEY FOUGHT FRED SO BAD that finally he got on television and decided to compromise with them and call a truce and half agree with them‚ saying, "Well see, I go to church too—there's nothing bad about going to church. I've joined the Baptist Church out in my valley, blah blah blah!"

64. IT WAS LIKE PAUL GOING BACK TO THE TEMPLE! Well, it didn't do any good anyway, as they didn't lay off him anyhow‚ even though he compromised with them. It's just like we found out when they started putting the pressure on us in Tenerife:

65. STOPPING OUR FF-ING FOR AWHILE DIDN'T MAKE THEM LAY OFF OF US ANYHOW. They kept going after us and were still trying to get us with their various investigations. So there's no use quittin'! You might as well go all out and witness just like we did and boom! They finally did stop harassing the girls sometime after we left. (Maria: They hadn't actually forbidden it by law, so therefore we could go ahead.) Yes, they had not forbidden us to do what we were doing and there was no law against it.

66. BUT OUR ENEMIES WERE DOING JUST LIKE THE SCRIBES AND THE PHARISEES OF JESUS' DAY—harassing, hounding and hassling us, calling us into court and threatening us, but not actually forbidding us, as we were not breaking any laws. So we decided we might as well go ahead and do it since they weren't actually forbidding us. But if they're going to bother us even when we don't do it, why not do it? Praise God!

67. WE DON'T LIKE TO GET IN TROUBLE WITH THE AUTHORITIES, we don't like to be at odds with them. We try to "live in peace with all men as much as it lieth in us." (Rom.12:18) But you can't always do it—especially when the Devil agitates his crowd to start fighting you and you don't stop even because of persecution. You have a right to obey God no matter what the laws of man say.

68. BUT IF YOU WANT TO STAY OUT OF TROUBLE and try to cause yourself as little trouble as possible and still be able to operate‚ then the thing to do is something which does not annoy them, or do it in a way that doesn't annoy them or where it doesn't annoy them and where you have as little conflict and confrontation with them as possible, so that you can keep on doing it in peace. If they forbid you on this corner, try another corner—if they forbid you altogether then try something else. That's been our policy.

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family