FFING AND JEALOUSY!--MO July 2, 1977 DO No.603
Copyright © October 1977 by The Children of God
[EDITED: "HomeARC note (9/98): FFing was discontinued in 1987."]
1. (MARIA: LETTERS HAVE BEEN WRITTEN ADMONISHING THE MEN TO LET THEIR WIVES FF, BUT SOME HUSBANDS ARE TOO JEALOUS. Extreme jealousy is really insanity, like insane rage! When people are so jealous, it's almost like a bad spirit or something!--Some of them have real difficulty getting over it.)
2. THERE ARE DEMONS OF JEALOUSY. This was one of the mortal sins the Catholics call the "seven deadly sins." There are demons who play up certain sins and vices, like demons of gluttony, demons of drink and drugs, demons of gambling, demons of sexual perversion--and of course the demons of jealousy can do a lot of damage by making persons insanely jealous.
3. DEMONS OF JEALOUSY HAVE PROBABLY KILLED OODLES OF PEOPLE, because they've inspired their mates to shoot them or knife them or kill them somehow. (Maria: Yes, I think jealousy is just as strong a demon as perversion or drug addiction or whatever it is.)
4. THERE ARE EVEN DEMONS OF THEFT! Some people who are rich have "kleptomania"--they steal stuff when they don't even need to steal it!--Look at some of those rich Mideast and Asian princesses and royalty in London that are always getting picked up for shoplifting when they've got oodles of money!
5. WE USED TO HAVE A MAID WHO STOLE FOR NO REASON AT ALL!--Everything that disappeared in the house we finally found in her room! She just picked up almost anything that was lying around loose. That's how the assistant pastor that we had in Miami went insane.
6. HE BEGAN SEEING THE DEVIL IN EVERYTHING after studying demonology, Mrs. Penn Lewis's books on demonology, all about seeing evil spirits and the work of the Devil, and he got so interested in the work of the Devil he forgot the work of the Lord, and he wound up a kleptomaniac and had to be put in an insane asylum! So there are demons of almost everything.
7. THIS WAS DEPICTED SO VIVIDLY IN THE MOVIE "KING OF KINGS" when Mary Magdalene was having the seven devils cast out of her by Jesus. It showed the names of each of these devils as they were being cast out, and I remember one was "Jealousy" and one was "Greed" and so on.
8. (MARIA: BUT EVERYBODY HAS SOME JEALOUSY.) Yes--even God gets jealous sometimes! (Num.20:5.) But just because you're naturally a little jealous sometimes doesn't mean you have a demon of jealousy. (Maria: I guess with some when it gets to a certain point they just allow it to take over.) Yes, when it's insanity and they just allow the Devil to take over.
9. (MARIA: THE DEMON ENTERS IN and then it's beyond their own control to do anything about it.--To a certain point they can control it, but when they submit to the Enemy at some point, then the Devil takes over.)--Unless you have the Lord. As long as you have the Lord there's always a Control, if you ask for it.
10. IF YOU HAVE THE LORD AND ASK FOR HIS HELP, YOU CAN CONTROL IT. But of course if you just let it take over and you don't ask the Lord for His help, it can get out of control. Like Mom's sister-in-law: She said, "At first I was only pretending, then after awhile I couldn't control it anymore"--and she had to go to an asylum!
11. (MARIA: COULD IT BE POSSIBLE THAT YOU'D HAVE A DEMON OF SOMETHING LIKE JEALOUSY before you were saved, and then you get saved but still have that?) You can often be plagued by familiar spirits of your past.--Like Mr. Machowski: After he was saved, that same familiar evil spirit that he used to have, still continued to plague him from the outside.
12. IT NO LONGER POSSESSED HIM, BUT ANNOYED HIM from the outside. This is what is sometimes called demonic oppression--when it is not demon possession, when it no longer controls you, when it's not inside but continues to plague you from the outside. Finally Mr. Machowski kept suppressing it and opposing it and fighting it, until finally in the name of Jesus he told it to go away one day and it never came back.
13. HE WAS PREACHING ON THE STREET CORNER one day when his former evil familiar spirit, Tom, was making fun of him. Then he realised just how evil Tom was, as he was now trying to defeat his witnessing. So right there he prayed and asked Jesus in Jesus' name, like casting a demon out, and commanded the demon to leave him.--And he said he saw him right that minute enter into a drunk that was there, and the drunk fell down and had a fit right on the spot!
14. (MARIA: ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU CAN'T STILL HAVE A DEMON OF SOMETHING AFTER YOU'RE SAVED?) You can be plagued by a demon sometimes from the outside, even if you're a Christian, but it cannot possess you.--You're the Lord's possession now and the devils can't have you! (Maria: But it seems like some people are almost powerless to overcome it, even Christians, that are really really jealous. Their jealousy is really really strong.)
15. IF IT'S THEIR WEAKNESS or their frailty or their besetting sin, the Enemy can play strong on it and even empower it or tempt you with it constantly from the outside. But I just do not believe that Christians can be possessed with a devil.
16. I DON'T SEE HOW YOU CAN BE POSSESSED BY AN EVIL SPIRIT AND THE LORD'S SPIRIT AT THE SAME TIME. This is why it's hard for me to believe that people like that man who called in that black devil Ted Patrick the demonic "deprogrammer" to help him recapture his son from us--it's hard for me to believe that people like that are even saved or Christians, if they have so little discernment and so little spirit that they don't even know the difference between devils and angels!
17. (MARIA: ARE YOU SURE THAT A LITTLE DEMON COULDN'T HAVE CONTROL OF SOME SIN, SOME WEAKNESS YOU HAVE, even though you're saved and the Lord has control of your life?) Honey, as my mother often used to say: You can't keep birds from flying over your head or pecking at you, but you don't have to let'm build a nest in you hair! But she also used to say that as long as there's one little dark unyielded corner of your life that you're not willing to yield to the Lord, if there's one little part of it, the Enemy can get at you there, like the camel's nose, and he can bother you in that one little thing, plague you with that one little thing. Like the guy who said to the rich man who'd bought the whole village except his cottage:
18. "REMEMBER, HUDDERSFIELD BELONGS TO THEE AND TO ME!" In other words, the Devil can say, "Aha, see! He's yielded everything except this one little thing! So even though he belongs mostly to Thee, a little bit still belongs to me!"--some little thing.
19. (MARIA: MAYBE SOME WAY YOU CAN BE ALMOST POSSESSED IN A CERTAIN AREA, a weakness, you're almost possessed in that certain point, although your heart belongs to the Lord and you've been saved and everything. There's still some kind of a little possession of some small area?)
20. WELL, IF YOU'RE WEAK IN THAT ONE AREA, THE ENEMY CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR WEAKNESS and harp on it and play on it and plague you on it and keep annoying you with it and empowering that weakness for his own benefit. The Enemy has some power over those things which are not yet yielded to the Lord, like some besetting sin. (Maria: So it's possession, that power is possession--if he has power over it, he has possession.)
21. NO, IT'S NOT TOTAL POSSESSION THOUGH, DEMON POSSESSION--I'm talking about demon possession, when the whole individual is totally owned, controlled and possessed by the Devil. (Maria: But I'm talking about a part, one weakness or one thing that the Devil has control of, and he controls you in that area. If he has power over it, if it's not yielded, he must have possession in a way of that certain part of your life.)
22. THE DEVIL COULD USE IT and influence it and empower it, if it's something that's not yielded to the Lord. But he couldn't get total control of even that part of the individual.
23. IN OTHER WORDS, IT'S STILL POSSIBLE FOR THAT INDIVIDUAL TO RESIST IT because that individual is possessed by the Spirit of the Lord, and it just cannot be that the tree can yield both good and evil fruit, it can't be both a good and a bad tree.
24. NOW THE CHRISTIAN IS THE LORD'S PROPERTY AND POSSESSED BY THE LORD AND HIS SPIRIT and is the Lord's, he belongs to the Lord and is controlled by the Lord. But of course, if he has some besetting sin, the Devil can use that thing to weaken him or to cause defeat in that particular area of his life, something that's unyielded to the Lord. Anybody who does any FFing but who's not sure that it's of the Lord and right and Scriptural, to that person it is wrong if they haven't got the faith for it.
25. BUT [DELETED] we have given them the Word and the cause and the whole motivation for the whole thing. That's where their problem comes in, see--whether they believe the Word or not.
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27. SO "HE THAT DOUBTETH IS DAMNED IF HE EAT"--OR FF! (Rom.14:23.) If you haven't got the faith for it and you go ahead and do it, then you are condemned "because he eateth not of faith. For whatsoever is not of faith is sin"--and that is the clincher of the whole chapter, of course--the last verse.
28. (MARIA: BUT THAT MEANS THAT FFers THAT GO AHEAD AND DO IT WITHOUT FAITH ARE DAMNED--damned if they do and damned if they don't!) Yes, because of their lack of faith. This word of course, "damned," does not mean here that they're going to Hell. It means they are condemned in their hearts and they will suffer judgement for it and they won't be as happy as we other guys because they think they're sinning and therefore they are sinning and will be judged accordingly for their disobedience and unbelief! (Maria: But back to my original question:
29. SOME OF THESE PEOPLE USE THAT AS AN EXCUSE, that they don't have faith for it, when their real reason is that they can't take their mates' jealous fits, or they're too jealous themselves!)--Yes!--And so they don't want to have faith for it! A lot of people don't have faith for certain things because they don't want to have faith for them, and therefore they reject the Word of God which vindicates it.
30. A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO HAVE FAITH FOR HEALING BECAUSE IT'S NOT ACCORDING TO THEIR CHURCH, or it would cause them to come under persecution or ridicule if they started talking about healing. Because if you're going to get healing you have to testify to it, you have to not only believe it but also confess it! It's a little like Salvation--you can't be saved without confessing Christ.
31. NEITHER CAN YOU BE HEALED WITHOUT CONFESSING HEALING and constantly praising God and giving your testimony and talking about it--or you're apt to lose it. If you don't give God the glory you can even lose it! Now you can't lose your salvation, but in the case of the blessing of God like healing, you can lose that. The Lord can take that away because you failed to confess it and testify to it.
32. [DELETED] YOU GOTTA BELIEVE IT, DO IT AND TESTIFY TO IT! (Maria: Most of these people's excuse is that they don't have the faith for it.) Some people don't want you to show them in the Word that healing is there either, because they don't want to pay the price for it!
33. "THERE ARE NONE SO BLIND AS THOSE THAT WILL NOT SEE!" [DELETED]
34. (MARIA: THEIR EXCUSE MOST OFTEN IS LACK OF FAITH, IN THE CASE OF FFing, BUT THEIR REAL REASON IS JEALOUSY.) Yes! I hardly know anybody that uses jealousy as an excuse. But they use all kinds of excuses for their jealousy, without confessing honestly that the real reason for their not FFing is jealousy, because they know that's wrong and selfish!
35. (MARIA: IT'S MOSTLY THE MEN BEING JEALOUS OF THE WOMEN, because it's the women that are doing most of the FFing.)--And it's the men who are jealous. (Maria: This has been happening a lot all over. Because I believe it's harder for the men, actually, because the women get more obvious reward.
36. IT'S HARD FOR THE WOMEN, BUT THE WOMEN GET MORE OF A REWARD OUT OF IT because you're seeing a life change and you're really into it, you're seeing something happening, a beautiful thing happening. But the man is in the background experiencing it only vicariously through his wife.) In most cases the woman can even enjoy the flesh side of it, because the Lord made it a pleasant thing to do.
37. (MARIA: RIGHT, SO I BELIEVE THE MEN HAVE THE HARDEST PART. Like with our staff: The men have had to stay home many nights with the babies while the women have been able to go out witnessing!) That's why I try to take them with us whenever we can, like I did last night.
38. (MARIA: IT'S DEFINITELY HARDER FOR THE HUSBANDS AND THE MEN. So in a lot of cases in the Family a lot of men have a real bad problem with jealousy, because some people are almost overcome with jealousy. With some people jealousy is a horrible thing and they almost get violent and become completely changed people!
39. SO, IN SUCH CASES, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? Are you still going to have the women going out? I don't even know how they're going to do it--some couples!) Well, I have always said, even in the very early days of "all things," I've always said that it has to be in agreement with all parties concerned.
40. ALL PARTIES CONCERNED HAVE TO HAVE THE FAITH FOR IT AND AGREE TO IT--IT HAS TO BE WITH MUTUAL CONSENT. Now if one does not have the faith for it and will not give consent, doesn't like it, doesn't want it, is jealous or refuses, then the other party is going to have to work on him and try to convince him and convict him and try to persuade him, so that he will be convinced and persuaded and agree and consent.
41. IT'S A CHOICE BETWEEN TRYING TO SAVE SOMEBODY'S WEAK CONSCIENCE AND SAVING A POOR LOST SOUL! If it's a matter of letting souls be lost and go to Hell just to protect some weak brother's weak conscience because he's weak in faith because he's weak in the Word, then we can't let this weak disobedient unfaithful brother keep us from doing God's will and delivering the message by a fruitful method that gets fruit and saves souls!
42. WE CAN'T STOP OUR WAY OF SAVING SOULS JUST BECAUSE IT MAKES HIM STUMBLE BECAUSE OF HIS WEAK UNWORDED CONSCIENCE! In this case we cannot pay any attention to his stumbling, because that's his fault, not ours! It is the weak ungrounded person's fault themselves if they are weak in faith! I have no patience with these sickening namby-pamby weak sisters!
43. IF YOU'RE WEAK IN FAITH IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE WEAK IN THE WORD!--And it's your own fault if you're weak in the Word, because you're either not reading the Word, you're ignorant of the Word or you're not receiving the Word!
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48. (MARIA: SOMETHING TO CONSIDER IS HOW THE WOMAN GOES ABOUT IT and how loving she is to her husband in the first place. Maybe there are several things that she'll have to be patient about and they'll have to try to work out. But if after a while everything fails and she's just stifled spiritually because she can't obey God, then that's that!)
49. GOD GIVES US ALL A CERTAIN TIME TO REPENT. He is patient and He is loving and He waits for us to repent. But when He's given us plenty of time to repent and plenty of time to change our minds, plenty of time to make the right decision, the right choice and to go His way, and yet we still refuse to do it, there comes a limit to how far He'll let you go.
50. WITH THE UNGODLY PERSON OR THE DISOBEDIENT CHILD, you can reprimand him several times, you can reason with him, you can give him the rules, and then you can question him and reprimand him when he breaks them. But if he keeps on being disobedient and breaking the rules, including the rule of love, then sooner or later you've got to discipline and punish him for it, chasten and chastise him for it, to try to make him obey.
51. IF HE WON'T DO IT VOLUNTARILY AND WILLINGLY, THEN YOU'VE GOT TO FORCE HIM TO OBEY. God does the same thing: If we don't obey voluntarily or willingly, He finally applies the rod! Eventually He's going to force the whole world to obey, whether they like it or not!
52. FOR THE HUSBAND IN OUR GROUP WHO DOESN'T DO IT VOLUNTARILY and willingly and even cheerfully, I put that Scripture in "Volunteers," or "The FF Revolution"; "The Lord loveth a cheerful giver!" (2Cor.9:7.)--It was about reluctant husbands.
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54. THEIR WIVES SHOULD BE PATIENT WITH THEM and give them a little time to repent, a little time to get the victory, a little time to pull out of it, a little time to see the facts and to recognise the truth and receive it and believe it and act on it.
55. OUR OLDER BRETHREN IN PARTICULAR SHOULD NO LONGER BE LITTLE BABIES WEAK IN FAITH, but receive the Word, believe the Word and act on the Word and have faith for it.--Or it's time for them to go someplace where they don't have to do it.
56. OUR OUTFIT IS NO PLACE FOR WEAKLINGS, and we don't have room for people who are so weak in faith--at least they won't last very long. We give them time to strengthen up and straighten out. But if they still insist on being weak in faith in spite of the Word, in spite of the Truth, in spite of every opportunity to believe it and receive it, if they still stubbornly cling to their unbelief and their doubts because they don't want to do it or they don't want their mate to do it, then sooner or later there has to come a dividing and a parting of the ways--either between the mates or between us and them, one or the other--or maybe both!
57. (MARIA: YES, BECAUSE THE WOMAN HAS TO MAKE THE CHOICE EVENTUALLY, IF HER HUSBAND IS HOLDING HER BACK. She probably will have to be the one to make the difficult choice of whether to stay with him or with us, as many of our girls have done already. She can't go on being disobedient and yet still holding on in the Revolution. She'll have to make that choice.) Yes, sooner or later the woman is going to have to say,
58. "I'VE GOT TO OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MAN"--just like the Apostles had to do.--Or the man if it's the other way around, if necessary. Usually it's that way though, because we're hooking most of the fish through female bait, normally, as they're usually men. In some places however we are hooking the girls through the boys. So either way, it works!
59. THE MATE HAS GOT TO BE RECONCILED TO IT AND BE WILLING TO SACRIFICE and be crucified if necessary for the sake of others, just as Jesus was. I mean, it's all in the Letters! We've put it down I don't know how many times--a thousand times I guess! But we have to say it again.
60. (MARIA: WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN JEALOUSY EVEN GETS TO THE POINT WHERE THEY USE PHYSICAL VIOLENCE?--Nothing major, but slapping or kicking or hitting their mate over jealousy.--Because this is what I was talking about when it makes them insane and they want to hit them!)
61. IT'S BECAUSE THEY LET THE DEVIL HAVE HIS WAY AND LET THE DEVIL RULE!--Then they're in a very dangerous condition! (Maria: One of the brothers used to go on being violent--but his wife almost acted like she liked it!--She used to go on and on and on letting her husband cruelly and violently beat her up!) Was she FFing somebody else? (Maria: Well, it wasn't just that, but I'm using it as an example.
62. LET'S SAY IF BECAUSE SHE'S FFing HE GETS SO JEALOUS THAT HE GETS VIOLENT, WHAT SHOULD SHE DO? There has been a case with one of our couples already, that her husband has been very violent and violently cruel.) Well, I'd say first of all you've got to find out whether the wife stimulates it and aggravates it because she does like it!
63. BECAUSE I REMEMBER A WOMAN WHOSE HUSBAND BEAT HER UP BECAUSE SHE CAME TO CHURCH!--Her husband kicked her ten times, but she said she loved him more after the tenth kick than after the first one! Some women actually like masochism, flagellation, etc.!--Maybe because of a guilt complex, and it eases their conscience because they feel like they deserve it!--It's a strange perversion!
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67. SO HUSBANDS WHO USE ACTUAL PHYSICAL VIOLENCE ON THEIR WIVES MUST BE OUT OF THEIR MINDS!--They need disciplining themselves!--And if they don't repent and desist, the beasts should be thrown out of the Family!--And let the wives stay with us if they want to!--Then they can FF all they want!--Ha! Praise God!--Amen? God bless you! I love you!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family