"THE TITHE!"--Malachi 3:10.--A Financial Crisis. MO 6/78 DO No.702
--By Father David
Copyright © June 1978 by the Family of Love, CP 748, 00100 Roma, Italia.
1. ONE OF THE MAIN IDEAS IN OUR WORK FOR GOD'S BUSINESS IS TO LEARN HOW TO ECONOMISE with the most precious and valuable thing we have--and what is that? (Time?) Time is one very important thing but there's something else.
2. TIME IS NOT IMPORTANT UNLESS YOU HAVE SOMETHING ELSE far far more valuable. Time is a part of it in a way. Life, which is involved with time is important too, but without something else you can't have life either.
3. THE MOST VALUABLE THING THAT WE HAVE IS PEOPLE, MAN POWER. It is the scarcest thing and the hardest to get. God has done a miracle by His Grace in giving us the message and the wisdom whereby we have recruited a missionary force of 7,000 in a shorter time than any missionary movement in history outside of the original Early Church.
4. HE HAS SCATTERED THEM THROUGHOUT THE WORLD INTO OVER 70 MAJOR COUNTRIES, and to all the Continents in a very short time. So God's given us the life and the time, but manpower has been our most precious commodity.
5. GOD HAS DONE MIRACLES TO HELP US TO WIN PEOPLE, to gain manpower. We don't really have enough, but we have some at least, and we want to use them efficiently and economically, the best possible way with the best possible distribution.
6. WE WANT TO USE OUR MANPOWER SO THAT IT CAN BENEFIT EVERYBODY and reach the most possible parts of the world with the Gospel to every creature. This has been my great burden, and I have worked years at it and God has blessed me with making it come true. It has been fulfilled by many miracles and by the power of God, but also by personal obedience.
7. AS THE LORD ONCE TOLD YOU, "BY THE OBEDIENCE OF ONE MAN, MANY HAVE BEEN MADE RIGHTEOUS." Because I obeyed the Lord you're here today, every one of you. I was afraid not to obey God. He gave the ideas and I passed them on.
8. HE GAVE THE ORDERS, I OBEYED AND THEREFORE, HE GAVE THE BLESSING of recruiting disciples, the manpower, the workers, the labourers for the field, the hardest thing to get. There is always a great harvest of new souls waiting for you, but it's hard to get the labourers who will go into the field to reap.
9. EVEN THE HARVEST OF MATERIAL BLESSINGS IS ALWAYS GREAT and plenteous if you'll just go out there and obey God and do His will and harvest. It's all there. If you do God's work, you're His employee, you work for Him, and He is certainly going to pay your salary and foot the bill, amen?
10. AT THE SAME TIME WE WANT TO BE SURE THAT WE ARE NOT WASTEFUL with the material blessings that God gives us any more than we are with manpower, that we don't waste our money or materials. Have you tried to economise both on manpower and on the material things?
11. MATERIAL THINGS DO NOT INTEREST ME EXCEPT THAT THEY ARE NECESSARY to carry out the work of God I have to do. I didn't particularly want this house, but we could rent it for about half of what others are having to pay for nothing but a flat. I am anything but extravagant.
12. I AM ONE OF THE MOST SAVING PEOPLE YOU'D WANT TO KNOW. I save on toilet paper. I save on paper towels. I save on tissues. The people who wait on the table come and try to grab my paper towel but I say no, when I finish this meal I'll do other things with it. I'll blow my nose on it a few times, I may even wind up wiping myself with it before I finally throw it away.
13. WHEN I LIVED IN THE CRUISER WE REALLY CONSERVED WATER because water was hard to get, hard to haul, and most of all, it was very difficult to get rid of the waste. Water we found is a lifegiving necessity, one of the most vital.
14. YOU CAN GO WITHOUT FOOD A LOT LONGER THAN YOU CAN GO WITHOUT WATER. You need water for many things. You need it for drinking, you need it for washing, cleaning, sanitation, and you even need it for disposal of waste, sewage.
15. SO SINCE WATER WAS SUCH A VITAL COMMODITY WE ECONOMISED ON IT in ways you perhaps might not imagine. We started off with nice clean fresh water in the tank, then in the bathroom wash bowl which wasn't much bigger than one of these serving dishes that you eat your dinner from.
16. SO WE PUT WATER IN THAT LITTLE BOWL, BUT WE DIDN'T FILL IT, we only put it about half full.--Enough that you could almost get it in two palms, so you could wash your hands and wash your face in it, and I strictly forbade anybody to let the water out of the bowl. I would be the judge of when the water was dirty enough.
17. EVERYBODY IN THE FAMILY WASHED THEIR HANDS AND FACE IN IT several times during the day all day long. Everybody used the same little half bowlful of water.
18. THEN WE WOULD LET IT OUT INTO A BUCKET underneath the bowl in which we would then take other forms of baths and bathing and footwashing, not ceremonial footwashing I guarantee you. So that by the time we had gotten through with that little bit of water and that half bucketful that finally accumulated under the sink, it was pretty well used and it was pretty dirty, it was nearly black.
19. BUT WE STILL WEREN'T THROUGH WITH IT because we had one more use for it. We didn't go to the toilet in it, but we did use it to flush the toilet.
20. YOU'VE HEARD ABOUT THE OLD MAIDS THAT SAVE PAPER CARTONS AND STRING and bits of paper and little boxes and match boxes and things like that. Well, I'm that kind of an old maid. I'd probably have the place full of them and stuffed with a lot of stuff that maybe is more wasteful in the long run, wasting space which is more valuable than the stuff that's in it. I don't like to throw anything away.
21. I TRY TO SAVE EVERYTHING. I was so saving that the day came once upon a time that God showed me that a lot of something far more valuable was being thrown away, and that was your lives: lives of the dregs of society, the hippies, the drug addicts, the vice addicts, the criminals.
22. SO GOD LED ME TO TRY AND SAVE THEM TOO, things that the System didn't even attempt to save because they felt they were hopeless and impossible. The churches didn't want them even coming through their doors with their dirty bare feet. Restaurants had signs up, "No Bare Feet," because they dirtied the carpets. I don't know why they would dirty carpets any more than shoes, that was just an excuse to keep the hippies out.
23. SO ANYBODY WHO KNOWS ME AND HAS LIVED WITH ME KNOWS THAT I AM PROBABLY THE MOST ECONOMICAL SAVING PERSON THAT YOU EVER WANT TO KNOW, and a horrible penny pincher, as chintzy as they come. I'm almost as bad as my grandfather, who my Mother said would squeeze a dollar, when they still had silver dollars that were worth something, so hard that it would make the eagle scream! So I am very economical, very saving.
24. I HAVE HAD TO LEARN SOMETHING THAT MY MOTHER OFTEN SAID, THAT GOD'S SERVANT IS MORE VALUABLE THAN HIS MONEY. There have been times when I have suffered because I was too darn stingy to want to spend the money and I have abused God's Servant, his strength and his time, because I didn't want to spend a few extra pennies to make it a little easier and quicker.
25. I CAN PROBABLY COUNT ON MY TWO HANDS THE NUMBER OF TIMES WE TOOK A TAXI IN LONDON. Once we sat in the cold for four hours until I got chilled and I got sick because nobody was there to meet me. I finally had to get a taxi because I was too sick with my baggage to do anything else.
26. I LONG AGO RELINQUISHED THE LUXURY OF AN AUTOMOBILE because I found out cars are a luxury, an extravagant luxury, and most of the time are much more expensive than they're worth!--And a helluva lot more trouble besides, and extremely much more dangerous!
27. TRANSPORTATION IS ONE OF OUR BIGGEST EXPENSES IN THE FAMILY and I have fought it and fought it. But Americans are automobile addicts and it's almost impossible to get it out of their blood.
28. WHAT WE SPEND ON TAXIS AND BUSES WOULDN'T BEGIN TO PAY FOR JUST THE UPKEEP OF AN AUTOMOBILE, much less its insurance, purchase, gasoline, etc., etc. And we seldom ever take a taxi. This morning we took one for the first time in about two months or so because we had to get to an appointment.
29. SO WE DON'T HAVE AN AUTOMOBILE BECAUSE I THINK IT'S AN EXTRAVAGANT EXPENSE, plus they are dangerous, so what's the use of having them? I can see cases in which automobiles or vehicles are necessary, particularly vans or trucks to carry supplies and loads and so on, which normally you couldn't carry otherwise.
30. BUT I THINK IN THE LONG RUN IF OUR WHOLE FAMILY WOULD THROW AWAY MOST OF OUR AUTOMOBILES and resort to the buses, trains and boats, we'd probably be money ahead. Leave it to the System!--Use it!
31. BUT TOO MANY PEOPLE ENJOY THE LUXURY OF A CAR and being able to get in it at will and drive wherever and whenever they want with whomever they want. And it's possible perhaps a car can be used economically if enough people use it for enough purposes that transportation cannot be found for any other way.
32. ABOUT THE ONLY TIMES I USED A TAXI IN LONDON WAS WHEN IT WAS RAINING cats and dogs and we had to get some place and it was cold, and I felt that my health was worth more than standing out in the rain waiting for a bus. We'd finally break down and resort to a taxi. But about 99% of the trips that we ever took around the city we went by bus or train just like the rest of the common people and the poor.
33. I WOULDN'T EVEN CLIMB ON SOMETIMES WHEN WE WERE STANDING OUT IN FREEZING COLD WEATHER, and it happened a lot of times. We would be standing there shivering and the green bus would come by whose fare was 15 pence, but I was too chintzy to waste three pence to climb on the green bus, I insisted on waiting another half an hour or 45 minutes in the cold for the 12 pence red one! Well, I don't think that's very smart, I learned my lesson at that too.
34. BUT THAT'S THE WAY I AM, IN CASE YOU DON'T KNOW. I never go anywhere unless I have to. We were in one tourist town for a whole year and we never took a sightseeing tour anywhere.
35. WE LIVED THREE MONTHS IN A HOTEL BECAUSE THAT WAS THE CHEAPEST THING YOU COULD DO. All the time we lived there we refused to take any sightseeing tours, never took even one, because I wouldn't shell out any money to go see anything, period. Maybe that's just a little stupid, and I may have learned more about the area if we had, but we just went around chatting with the people, the common and the poor, the waiters and the waitresses, and the dustbin men and whatnot.
36. THE OTHER DAY WE TOOK A LITTLE DAY OFF, OUR FIRST DAY OFF IN ABOUT FIVE OR SIX MONTHS. Everyday is the same to us, we work right through day after day although we take a little time off each day to go and exercise, and we went and climbed on a bus headed for we wist not where, somewhere to go just to get away.
37. WE TOOK A LOCAL BUS, PAID A FEW PENNIES EACH TO SOME UNKNOWN DESTINATION, AND TOOK A RIDE. We arrived there and then we walked about half way back until we finally climbed on another little bus, paid another few pennies each, and putt-putted back to our area of town and then walked the rest of the way. It's good for you, I'm not complaining. We enjoyed it and it was good exercise.
38. I DON'T GO ANYWHERE I DON'T HAVE TO. I don't do anything I don't have to. I don't take a walk if I don't have to because I don't have time. I don't walk enough, we don't get out enough. Poor Maria doesn't get enough sunshine.
39. WE DON'T GET ENOUGH EXERCISE BECAUSE WE SPEND MOST OF OUR TIME WORKING ON YOU and the Lord's Letters for you, to help you. So I don't think anybody can accuse us of being wasteful.
40. IN FACT, WHEN WE TRAVEL I SHOP TO FIND THE CHEAPEST WAY I CAN to get where God Himself tells me to go. Sometimes I don't want to go even after God tells me to, because it costs at least a little money and that is too much for me.
41. I GO THROUGH THE CHEAPEST TOUR BOOKS AND PICK THE CHINTZIEST FLEABAG HOTELS with the lousiest food and everything else to try to save money and try to figure out some way to economise so it doesn't cost so much. If it wasn't for Maria I probably would wind up in some dump down in nowhere and die of the poisonous food or something.
42. TO SAVE MONEY ONCE I SAW A BARGAIN WHERE WE COULD BUY A FLAT with a small down payment and then our payments would have been less than the rent and I thought it was great to save so much money. Of course it happened to hang right over the market area, and was one of the noisiest places in town, going from bright and early in the morning till late at night.
43. I PROBABLY WOULDN'T HAVE HAD ANY SLEEP OR ANY REST, besides being totally surrounded by poor families with scads of little kids and everything else, and totally shut up with only one window in the whole place for fresh air.
44. BUT MARIA WAS DETERMINED TO TRY TO SAVE THE LORD'S SERVANT AS WELL AS HIS MONEY. So frequently she manages to win out over my ingrained ideas of financial economy to try to save my life. So I'm saving and very economical, believe it or not.
45. I THINK WE HAVE FIGURED OUT HOW TO GET OUT THE LETTERS TO THE WORLD IN THE MOST ECONOMICAL WAY POSSIBLE. I remember the days when we worked on this size page and that size page and this kind of print and that kind of print, and the first stuff we put out was so microscopic the kids nearly ruined their eyes on it!--Just trying to save a few pennies nearly cost their eyesight. We finally tried to hit on some happy medium where we could save money and save our eyes both.
46. WHEN THE LORD TOLD ME I HAD TO GET OUT OF AMERICA AND "FLEE AS A BIRD," I didn't know where to go. I thought about Mexico, but that's a little too close to the U.S. I thought of Canada but that's too close too. I thought I'd better really get out of there and get some place a heck of a long ways away at the rate they were trying to get me.
47. SO I GOT TO NEW YORK THE CHEAPEST WAY I POSSIBLY COULD, and while we were waiting for our passports and reservations and so on I was all the time trying to wangle a free trip and free room and board in Israel out of the Jewish agency, which they weren't willing to come through with. For some reason they always eyed me with suspicion in spite of all my sales talks. I finally had to foot the bill myself.
48. WHILE WAITING, MARIA AND I SLEPT IN A LITTLE SIX-BY-SIX GREEN TENT ON THE GROUND THREE WEEKS. It wasn't too wet, we only got soaked a few times. Of course I could have caught pneumonia and died trying to save money.
49. THERE'S NOTHING I EVER ASKED YOU KIDS TO DO THAT I HAVEN'T DONE some time or other myself, including hitchhiking and all the rest, or wangling a meal off a restaurant or whatnot.--And I'm still trying to do that. Only now with my security situation I have to act my best.
50. WHENEVER I HAVE TO FACE ANY IMMIGRATION I HAVE TO LOOK SYSTEM ENOUGH that they might want me to stay. They don't want the poor and hippies and people that they don't think have any money and they might have to wind up supporting.
51. SO I HAVE TO PRETEND TO BE A SYSTEMITE and give some excuse for the fact that I can afford to live and have some means of support for the sake of security. So I wear my system front, my system disguise. I wear my best suit coat and I've still got my $2.95 shoes, and my old pants have a few holes but I don't think they'd see them.
52. MARIA HAS THE HARDEST TIME GETTING ME TO WEAR NEW CLOTHES. She practically yanks the clothes off my back too put something new on me because I think, "Well, I haven't worn this out yet, why should I take it off?" She has a terrible time getting me to change my clothes even once a week.
53. I FIGURE WHY SHOULD I CHANGE THEM, they're not dirty yet, and I stay clean so they don't smell bad. I'd better wait till they get real good and dirty and worth washing 'cause washing wears out the clothes and it wears out the washing machine, wastes water and soap.--Think how much it wastes by not wearing your clothes long enough!
54. I'M PROBABLY THE WORLD'S WORST ON ECONOMISING. Ten years living in that Cruiser and I think I went for months without ever taking a bath, or at least what most Americans call a bath.
55. I NEVER KNEW WHAT IT WAS TO STAND AND SING IN THE SHOWER FOR HOURS enjoying loads of hot water. I was thankful I had my little teacup of water to wash my face and hands with! I'm not ashamed to tell you how either!
56. I TOLD 'EM HOW TO TAKE A BATH IN A CUP OF WATER once in Kentucky Springs: What you wash first and what you wash next and how you manage to rinse after you've washed. You don't even have to rinse. You just take a wet washrag and wipe the soap off.
57. OF COURSE IT DOESN'T QUITE GET IT ALL OFF AND YOU GET A LITTLE CRUSTY SOMETIMES. Nevertheless, at least you had a bath in a drink of water, and when it's cold and you don't have much water, it's better than nothing.
58. SO THEN WE CAUGHT A PLANE TO EUROPE ON A NEW CHEAP AIRLINE we heard about, Icelandic. I guess I must have really looked funny sitting there. There wasn't one person in that whole waiting room or on the plane that was even half as old as I was.
59. I STUCK OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB AMID ALL THOSE HIPPIES. They were looking at me and I was thanking God I looked at least a little radical. But I was carrying a hat and a topcoat that made me look like a traitor to the cause, and I had to wear a business suit and a tie because that's all I had. I didn't have any hippie clothes.
60. THEY LOOKED AT ME KIND OF NARROWLY, WONDERING, "How did he get in here anyway? What kind of a spy is he? He's investigating this airline to see if there's some way they can put them out of business to stop the way us hippies want to travel!"
61. BUT TO LOOK SYSTEM FOR IMMIGRATION, I CAN'T TRAVEL WITH OLD DUFFEL BAGS. And Maria didn't look the part either, we really looked funny. But I kind of got a kick out of it because I loved them and they soon learned we loved them.
62. SO WE GOT TO EUROPE THE CHEAPEST WAY I KNOW OF, getting over here for something under a $100 apiece, I forgot exactly what it was. I was so chintzy.
63. OF COURSE NONE OF THE FAMILY HAD BEEN TO EUROPE BEFORE. Nobody booked us any rooms, we didn't have any advance reservations in any hotel, nothing. But we read Fromer's Europe on Five Dollars a Day.
64. WE PICKED OUT THE CHEAPEST PLACE that he suggested in all of London and it just so happened that she did have a room left. So we took a taxi there and we got us a room and board in the fourth floor attic up underneath the garret.
65. WE CLIMBED UP AND DOWN FOUR FLIGHTS OF STAIRS TO GO TO THE TOILET and the rugs were thick, layer upon layer. When one rug wore out they put another layer on top. The furniture was collapsing and we slept in the funniest old bed you ever saw, and we seldom ever missed a breakfast.
66. I CHOKED DOWN THAT BACON EVEN THOUGH IT WAS AGAINST MY RELIGION! When it comes to a Jew's choice between his religion or his pocketbook, you know good and well what he'll choose. So, I chose the bacon, even though I got deathly sick. I was going to eat that bacon if it killed me, and it almost did!
67. THAT FIRST ROOM WE PAID $6 A WEEK and for lunch we bought little snacks from the grocery store and ate them in our room, sometimes even for supper. Our first trip to Israel we ate out of tin cans most of the time.
68. WE STAYED IN A LITTLE ANNEX OF THIS CHEAP HOTEL THAT WAS EVEN CHEAPER THAN THE HOTEL and which they reserved for the sailors from the trawlers, merchant vessels and old tramp steamers that came into port there. So we were living with the sailors, God bless them, and we ate in our room.
69. THERE WAS NO HEAT SO WE WORE EVERY STITCH OF CLOTHES WE HAD, plus our overcoats and hats to bed to try to keep warm. We used to run the washbowl full of hot water to try to take a little chill off the atmosphere and we nearly froze to death! If we hadn't been sleeping together in one single bed we probably would have frozen to death. I can tell you a lot of tales about being economical. We economised, let me tell you!
70. WE BOUGHT A ONE-MONTH EurRail PASS BEFORE WE LEFT THE STATES. It was such a bargain, the cheapest way you can possibly travel. So we bought a one-month EurRail Pass to see Europe.
71. AFTER WE HAD SPENT A LONG ENOUGH TIME IN ENGLAND, WE BOARDED THE TRAIN, and we spent one month on the train. I figured if the trains were that comfortable then that was the way to travel, and that was the way to live and sleep as well.
72. WHY WASTE TIME AND MONEY GOING TO A HOTEL WHEN YOU WERE RIDING IN FIRST-CLASS COMFORT and you could lay those seats out and stretch out and go to sleep. Of course we got a little uncomfortable when we had six or more people in the same compartment and we couldn't stretch out any more. Even then Maria and I would try to get opposite seats so we could push them out and lie with our legs interlocked and still sleep.
73. IN THAT ONE MONTH I DON'T THINK WE SPENT ANY MORE NIGHTS IN A HOTEL than I can probably count on one hand, maybe a little more than one hand. I figured I was going to get my money's worth out of that train if it killed me, and it almost did.
74. WE STOPPED OVER IN THE DAYTIME TO WALK AROUND. We were really reconnoitering Europe for your sake to try to sense out the situation and to see what there was. I have a funny thing about sensing things in the Spirit. I've got to be in the place and feel it, and so we visited all over Europe.
75. WE VISITED PRACTICALLY EVERY COUNTRY IN EUROPE, except East Europe and we almost went there except there were all kinds of restrictions. Besides, we didn't have that much time left on our EurRail Pass.
76. WE SLEPT ON THE TRAIN AT NIGHT. We tried to reserve the long jaunts from one country to another where there wasn't too much to see for night travel and we'd sleep overnight on the train. Then we'd get to that place the next morning and get off the train and walk around and eat in little cheap joints and whatnot until we were exhausted and climbed back on the train at night.
77. WELL, I COULD TELL YOU MANY TALES OF HOW WE SAVED MONEY, some that you might not believe, but it's the truth. So it hurts me when people are extravagant, hurts me when people waste, especially manpower.
78. AMERICA'S WASTED ITS YOUTH, ITS MOST PRECIOUS MANPOWER, ITS FUTURE. America's future's gone because they wrecked their youth, and the youth that are worth anything and worth their salt and have got any sense at all have left, I urged them to leave as soon as they could. There's hardly anything left but the kind of people that like the System. So I could go on and on telling you funny stories of how we saved money.
79. WE ALWAYS CARRIED IN OUR LITTLE BAG ONE BOTTLE OF WINE, ONE LOAF OF BREAD AND A HUNK OF CHEESE so we were never without something to eat. We ate wine, cheese and bread for breakfast, and wine, cheese and bread for lunch. Then we went out and afforded ourselves the luxury of about one meal a day in a restaurant in the cheapest possible place in town.
80. WE'D WALK ALL OVER TOWN PRICING EVERY RESTAURANT IN TOWN. By he time we ate there was no place in that town any cheaper than the place we ate.
81. I'VE TRIED TO TEACH YOU TO BE THAT WAY, BUT SOME OF YOU SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN. Although I never really personally had some of you with me, I've tried to teach you. But some of you seem to have kind of grandiose ideas sometimes.
82. SO NOW WE'VE NOT ONLY BEEN TRYING TO SOLVE THE PERSONNEL PROBLEMS but solve the pecuniary problems as well, not only save the manpower but save the money. We've had some good ideas already.
83. SO I'M JUST ENLIGHTENING YOU A LITTLE on a few things you need to know. I don't want you to operate on the wrong kind of premises or you're going to come out with the wrong kind of answers.
84. I WANT TO DROP A LITTLE BOMB ON YOU, Beloved, and shock you. Despite the many criticisms we've made of some of these leaders, I don't want you to criticise them too much. Let's criticise where criticism is due and economise where we need to economise. But don't hit the wrong place, where you may not have known what you were hurting--me!
85. SOME OF WHAT YOU ARE HITTING AT IN YOUR ATTACK ON THE TITHES & GIVING IS HITTING ME personally, and the money that makes it possible for me to live right here, right now, believe it or not. What you didn't know is that although there is a special fund where all the designated gifts go that are sent in to us personally, that fund was usually so low and those gifts were so low that they never met our expenses.
86. THIS IS PART OF WHY I HAVE HIT THE HOMES SO HARD TO SEND IN A BETTER SHARE of their income. Some of them are rich and making much more money than they need. I'm not talking about the poor little struggling pioneer Homes, if they can't afford it I've told them what to send. Of course remember the little widow's mite, she cast in all her living, not just 10%.
87. YOU NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THE POOR GIVING, because you can never outgive God if you give to the right place. I'm not even sure the Temple needed it, but God honoured her sacrifice just the same.
88. SO YOU CAN EVEN CAST IN ALL YOUR LIVING AND STILL NOT HURT because God will bless you for it. Even if some people are wasting it, if your motive is right and your intentions are good and pure, God will bless you for giving, and honour and prosper you for it, praise God!
89. IT'S AMAZING!--TO ME THAT'S ONE OF THE GREATEST MIRACULOUS THINGS I've ever noticed. Because even when we were existing on nothing but forsake-alls and so on, it didn't matter what our expenses were, income always just barely met it with a little over!--Miraculous! Even the expenses we didn't know we were going to have, God always saw to it that the money was there.
90. I'VE NEVER KNOWN GOD TO LET HIS SERVANTS STARVE. We sat down one time to give thanks when we had shredded wheat but no milk and we figured we ought to use water. You can do that in case you ever get hard up. Some of these Americans, they're so used to having everything, if they don't have it they don't know what to do. It's surprising what you can do.
91. GOD DIDN'T LET THAT HAPPEN TO US with our four small kids. As soon as we sat down to that shredded wheat and water breakfast, before we poured the water on, we heard the PA system paging us to come to the office of the trailer park for a letter, and therein was $10. The grocery store was on the corner and we had milk for breakfast, praise God! Do you know what it is to live by faith and not know where it's coming from?
92. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE I HAPPEN TO HAVE A VERY SMALL RESERVE. They sent me a little bit and I have saved it for you. I haven't touched it. But if our support continues to drop or stops coming and we have an emergency that's going to last any length of time, at least we'll have something to live on.
93. IN THE MEANTIME I HAVE TO APPEAR FINANCIALLY RESPONSIBLE so governments will be willing to let us travel and stay in their country, because they're not going to let any bum in with no source of income and no notable means of support.
94. I CAN'T TELL THEM, "WELL I HAPPEN TO BE THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY OF LOVE and I'm that guy Father David you heard about. And I have lots of money in secret bank accounts," and all the things I've been accused of. Which isn't so, I haven't got any money in the bank anywhere, it's your money. Really, it's not even your money either--it's the Lord's.
95. WHAT LITTLE I HAVE I HAVE TO HAVE TO SHOW THAT I AM FINANCIALLY RESPONSIBLE and can legitimately claim that I am retired and I have a slight income. That is a little problem, in case you don't know it.
96. SOME COUNTRIES WON'T EVEN LET YOU IN. I landed in Luxembourg that time and you had to have a thousand dollars on you before they'd even let you into the country, that planeload of hippies. It's a good thing we happened to have it, that's about all we had. God bless the ones that sent it to us at that time.
97. BUT IF YOU NEED THE MONEY AND YOU NEED IT MORE THAN I DO, why, you're welcome to it, I'll gladly give it to you. I might have to go out and find myself another job or maybe start another Revolution somehow and pick up a few more disciples and start a Home of my own, or we could start litnessing or something. Of course if they found out who I am we'd probably get thrown out of the country and then where would we be?
98. IF I HAVEN'T GOT ANYTHING TO LIVE ON AND I HAVE NO PLACE TO LIVE and can't stay in any country because I can't show a decent amount of money in the bank, then what are you going to do with me? I'm your problem.
99. "OH," YOU SAY, "WELL, COME AND LIVE IN ONE OF OUR HOMES." Well, I wonder how much I'd get done living in one of your Homes. "We could feed you and house you for nothing. It wouldn't cost us hardly anything." Well that's just about how much work I might get done, nothing, I've tried it.
100. I COULDN'T EVEN STAND TO LIVE IN A HOUSE WITH MY OWN FAMILY. I got very little done because they kept coming to me with every little problem, every little thing. They kept wasting all my time and my strength discussing everything and all the things I shouldn't be involved in.
101. YOU WANT TO KEEP WHAT IT COSTS FOR ME TO LIVE EVERY MONTH and the money that I have to have in order to live in any country, and the money which will probably come in as an absolute Godsend one of these days when the emergency arrives and there is no money and no income from any other source to tide us over? Then I'd like to know what the hell am I going to do? What the hell are you going to do for MO Letters when there's no more MO?
102. I HAVEN'T ASKED FOR ONE RED CENT MORE THAN WE HAVE GOT TO HAVE TO SURVIVE AND DO THE JOB God gave us to do. That's what it costs to feed us, foot the bills and buy just things we need. I haven't gone to a store for two years! I haven't bought me a damn thing that I know of. We don't just go around buying ourselves new clothes.
103. IF WE HAVE ANY ONE EXTRAVAGANCE, IF THERE'S ONE WEAKNESS THAT MARIA HAS, IT'S TAKING PICTURES. If we spend money anywhere we spend money on pictures, I must say. I'm probably the most photographed man in the world, and you've seen fewer of them than anybody.
104. BUT IT JUST COULD BE THAT ONE OF THESE DAYS THOSE ARE GOING TO PAY OFF, when I'm dead and gone. You just might appreciate them when she finally has that story to tell and those pictures to illustrate it with and can tell you all about the things we can't tell you now.
105. YOU'LL REALLY BE THANKFUL FOR THOSE PICTURES SOME DAY. Especially the people who never got to meet me and never knew me and who might find it interesting. Who knows, you might even make a mint on the book! It might be a help to you dear Homes who think you need all the funds right now. The only asset we've got in this house is the toilet. That's been the best ass-sit lately, and it's the only throne I've got.
106. I DON'T LIKE TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH MONEY. Personally, I never had much money to worry about and, as Maria and Mother both know, that's not my besetting sin, any desire for money.
107. I NEVER WANTED ANY MONEY, NEVER HAD ANY, NEVER CARED A DAMN ABOUT IT. I was thankful if I had a place to stay and someplace to eat. And the fact that God has given us any and entrusted us with any is only a miracle of God and apparently because I don't like it and don't want it and I'm not covetous of it.
108. SO YOU HAVE TOSSED THE BALL IN MY COURT? WELL, I'M GOING TO TOSS IT BACK to you. If you're going to keep the tithes, which are necessary to both keep me and to keep the Family in business, then I just want you to explain to me what I am going to do and what is World Services going to do?
109. WELL YOU SAY, LET'S JUST ELIMINATE WORLD SERVICES ENTIRELY and then they won't need any tithes. Well, if you can figure out a way to make it any smaller than I have then I'm all for it. Praise God. Maybe you can eliminate me too and you won't need to send in any tithes. But I wonder what you'll do for MO Letters and your own support? Kind of like the guy who killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. Remember that story?
110. HE GOT A LITTLE IMPATIENT WAITING ON JUST ONE GOLDEN EGG A DAY, and decided to kill the goose and get them all at once. You know what happened don't you? He found he killed the gold factory, because when he split the goose open there was just one egg, and that was the last one, that was the end.
111. NOW IF YOU WANT, YOU CAN KILL THE ORGANISATION which we have, and which was not built for the egg to begin with, but if you want to kill the goose in order to get the last egg, then where are the rest of your eggs going to come from?
112. NOW IF YOU'RE READY TO DUMP ME, PRAISE GOD, I'M READY TO GO. That will save me a lot of work because I won't have to worry about you any more either, and you're a helluva lot bigger worry than I ever had before in my whole life. When I never had anybody but myself and my own little family, we lived on almost nothing, travelling around in a camper.
113. BUT NOW I'VE GOT YOU ON MY HANDS, A MUCH BIGGER FAMILY and a helluva lot more responsibility which requires a lot more finances, a lot more figuring how to make it work and stay alive and help you stay with your heads above water.
114. YOU REMIND ME OF THE PRODIGAL SON.--HE THOUGHT HE OUGHT TO HAVE HIS SHARE TOO, right away quick. So he insisted on it, it was his, and he got it. All right, where did he get it?
115. WHY HADN'T THE FATHER GIVEN IT TO HIM BEFOREHAND? What was that portion? It was a part of the farm. It was a part of the total investment. It was literally a part of the business and he demanded his share of the investment.
116. HE DIDN'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT HOW THE FATHER OR THE BROTHER GOT ALONG, or Mom either, after he was gone, whether they made it or not. He wanted what was coming to him. "That's mine and I want it, give it to me, I deserve it. It's supposed to be mine and I'm going to take it and do as I please with it. I'm going to get the benefit of it." So he did, and what came of it?
117. BY THE TIME HE GOT DONE WITH IT THERE WASN'T ANYTHING LEFT and if it hadn't been for his wise father and smarter older brother who stayed home and worked and kept things going and managed to survive the loss, he could have damned well, God damn it, stayed out there stuck in the mud with his God-damned hogs and died there!--Because he wouldn't have had any home to go back to. There wouldn't have been any home, nor any loving father or elder brother to take care of him when he went broke.
118. THAT FOOLISH BROTHER CAME BACK WITH NOTHING, everything gone, and moved back in under the hospitality of his father and brother; eating their food, sitting at their table under their roof, which was no longer his because he'd spent his. But they'd been smart enough to hang onto theirs so he'd have a roof to come back to and some food to eat when he finally repented of his foolishness.
119. WE HAVE HAD TO RESCUE MANY HOMES out of a jam when they couldn't make it and sent to us for money, and we sent it to help them. But if you want to destroy the house, sell the home and throw away the roof and chop up the farm so that when the emergency comes there's not going to be any help and the Homes will have nobody to look to and nowhere to go and nowhere to get help from, well, it's your farm and that's what you can do if you want to, if you want to be that foolish.
120. FRANKLY BETWEEN THE THREE OF THEM, WHO DO YOU THINK WAS THE SMARTEST?--THE OLDER BROTHER! He held on to what he had and invested it wisely and increased it so that by the time his younger foolish brother got back after his Home had run out of steam and out of money and needed help, he had someplace to go to get it. The older brother had been smart enough to hang onto it and increase it so that he'd have something to give him and be able to feed him and take care of him in his time of need and emergency.
121. I'M WORKING FAST AND FURIOUS AND AS HARD AS I CAN ON FIGURING HOW TO CUT DOWN ON EXPENSES, and have finally just about eliminated extra services and spread out everything so that we can know that every penny is counting and nothing's being wasted and nothing's being spent on anything that isn't absolutely necessary. That's why I spent so much time telling you how damned chintzy and saving I am.
122. WE DEFINITELY NEEDED TO REORGANISE OUR WORLD LEADERSHIP AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF TITHES. God knows we needed it and that's why I wrote the new Letters delivering you, and that's what I worked on like mad for months. But now it seems like everyone is saying, "Well, now we can keep all the money and everyone'll have all they need."
123. IF WHAT'S LEFT OF WORLD SERVICES HAS NO SUPPORT THERE'LL NO LONGER BE ANY COMMUNICATIONS CENTRE. Maybe your little Home would stay together and you'd keep your part of the Kingdom, but there'd be no more international worldwide Family of Love, at least not that amounts to anything. But if you think we'd all be better off broken up in little pieces and little breezes here and little breezes there instead of one mighty hurricane, well, if that's what you want you can have it.
124. BUT LEST ANYBODY HAVE ANY MISUNDERSTANDING BEFORE THAT, things can get awful screwed up and stories get awful twisted if they are not given in the right way. So the rumour gets rumoured and the story storied until it has done more damage than we can repair.
125. WELL, YOU SAY, "IT'S GOT TO BE GIVEN TO THE ONES WHO NEED IT." Fine, I agree. And one of the poor men happens to be World Services, who had been damn poor until I started plugging for the fact that they needed and deserved the support of the world.
126. I WANT TO TELL YOU SOMETHING, I HAVE BEEN IN THIS KIND OF BUSINESS ALL MY LIFE and my parents before me and my grandparents before them, depending on donations, and I know a rumour can absolutely fix your wagon. I've seen it nearly wipe out works of God when the people thought the work had a lot of money, and the bubble broke and nobody sent any more and the thing was gone. If you want to wipe it out, that's one way, just cut off its income totally.
127. I WANT TO TELL YOU RIGHT NOW YOU'RE TAMPERING WITH DANGEROUS BUSINESS because more homes have split over money than almost anything else. I have seen more denominations fall apart over financial arguments than anything else, and I hate to see the same thing happen to you.
128. IF YOU DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER HOW TO HANDLE IT THAN THAT, instead of trying to share the power and the funds with you, you would be better off if we had kept your dictators, than to let you run it. Some of you are operating on a misapprehension and misinformation and obviously without proper understanding of what's happening.
129. THIS IS WHY I GOT HOT UNDER THE COLLAR ABOUT IT and wrote to you worldwide Homes the way I did because you failed to support us. You have not tithed enough and I feel it my responsibility to tell you so, whether you like it or not.
130. I TOLD MARIA AFTER WRITING ONE OF THOSE LETTERS, "WELL, MAYBE I WON'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS LEFT AFTER THIS ONE. Maybe when they hear I'm asking for money they'll say, 'Well, he's just like all the rest of those religious racketeers. All he's after is money!', and they'll quit us entirely. Maybe I'm through, washed up because I told them they need to learn a little responsibility and how to support their pastor."
131. I WOULD NOT HAVE ASKED FOR ONE DAMNED CENT FOR MYSELF TO THIS VERY DAY IF IT WERE NOT FOR YOUR BENEFIT. I can think of a lot easier ways of making money. I was a salesman in my day and I had companies begging me to go to work for them for $20,000 a year, which was a lot of money in those days, because I was a good salesman. Maybe I'm not so good now, and maybe I'd starve to death, or maybe I'd have to move into one of your Homes.
132. I'LL TELL YOU RIGHT NOW, I NEVER ASKED FOR THIS JOB in the first place, never wanted it, and certainly didn't want it for the money, that's the last thing! I never wanted to be loaded with such responsibility.
133. IF I HAVE MORE BATTLES WITH MY HEART LIKE I'VE HAD LATELY, you won't have to worry about supporting me any more. But I do hope you'll take care of Maria at least, because she's got an awful lot of material I think you'd enjoy if she ever had a chance to get it out. Well, God will take care of her if you don't.--If I have to come back from the spirit world and haunt you, I'll see to it that she's taken care of.
134. IF ANYBODY'S LIVING IN HIGH STYLE NOW and spending a lot of money, my dearly Beloved, it is you! So I suggest you start in your own backyard and start economising yourself.
135. WHEN YOU START LIVING AS FRUGALLY AS YOUR PROPHET LIVES, maybe you'll have somebody to criticise.--Think that over! I hate to talk to you that way but you need it and you deserve it. Well, I'm not your same sweet old prophet now am I?
136. WELL, THE OL'LION'S GOT A LITTLE MORE THAN JUST SWEET LEFT IN HIM and he can still sock it to them when they need it. Given the right time and the right place and a little more secure atmosphere, I probably would have been jumping up and down on the table by this time and swinging a pole lamp around over your heads to throw a little of the fear of God into you, the way I used to do at the Club.
137. WELL, SUCH IS LIFE AND SUCH IS THE PROBLEM OF AN OLDER LEADER trying to get some of you to learn. Maybe this lesson was needed so maybe next time you'll look before you leap.
138. SOME HAVE FAILED YOURSELVES BECAUSE YOU HAVE CEASED TO OBEY, CEASED TO FOLLOW, ceased to be faithful, and that root of bitterness has gone a hell of a long ways and has nearly destroyed you. It has almost destroyed your ministry and it can do fair to destroy me and the whole Work if you let it go much longer. If God has to He will use drastic means to stop you, to show you and to try to wake you up to how far you have gone.
139. I HOPE I SURVIVE LONG ENOUGH TO HELP YOU SURVIVE, that if possible I can live long enough to help you get ready. A few times lately I didn't know if I was going to make it but thanks to the mercy of God and your prayers I'm still here, and I will be until you have the reins of the Kingdom.
140. I REALISE THAT WHAT YOU DID YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE DOING FOR THE GOOD, and all things work together for good and it will work for the good and it will work for the good in the long run I'm sure, but in the meantime you caused a great hardship on me and others. Your intentions were good and your motives were good, but because you didn't seek God for His wisdom and how to go about it, you were misled. Some did more than their share.
141. WELL, NOW MAYBE YOU HAVE LEARNED SOMETHING ABOUT GOD'S BUSINESS that you never knew before. I hope you can take it and I hope you understand it and are not worse off than you were before. Pray to God that you won't make the same mistake and use such poor judgment and such poor wisdom ever again as to fail to support His work as you should.
142. "BRING YE ALL THE TITHES INTO THE STOREHOUSE (WS), that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Mal.3:10).--Amen! GBY! WLY!
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143. P.S. WE THANK GOD THAT SINCE THIS WAS WRITTEN most of you have done your best to rescue us from this financial crisis by giving all you could. GBY!
144. BUT THINGS ARE STILL TIGHT and some of you with good incomes are still not tithing your total incomes as you should, which would help us breathe a bit easier for the work and accomplish more.
145. MANY OF OUR MISSIONARIES ARE STILL IN DIRE NEED, and this is where our tithe goes, to World Missions--10% of our total income.--But it's still not enough.
146. IF YOU WOULD ONLY TITHE YOUR TOTAL INCOME we would be able to support these needy missionaries better, and better serve your WS needs as well.
147. SO PLEASE TRY TO TITHE 10% OF YOUR TOTAL INCOME to meet all those needs, both of WS services to you and the needs of your missionaries in hard fields.
148. YOU'LL NEVER BE SORRY! GOD WILL REPAY! Read the verse again! (Mal.3:10). He'll pour you out such blessings there won't be room enough to hold'm! Amen? PTL!
149. GBY! WLY! AND THANK YOU! We wouldn't ask you for it if we didn't need it, but we do need it--and your missionaries need it desperately!
150. WILL YOU HELP? WILL YOU TITHE? We believe you will, and God will bless you for it! We know because we're doing it too!--and God is blessing! PTL! GBY and make you a blessing!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family