THE SHEPHERD'S ROD!               DO 682            3/78

         1. THE NUMBER ONE RESPONSIBILITY FROM EACH MONTH'S INCOME IS PAYING YOUR BILLS! And which bills do you pay first? First, your housing, second, your utilities, & third, any other payments you have like your WS tithe!
         2. If you've got anything left you EAT, & if NOT you just DON'T eat! Either that or you get out & HUMP for it & GET it so that you DO eat. This has been our policy for YEARS!
         3. If you haven't used that policy, you have not obeyed the Letters. It would be a real besmirchment on the cause of Christ for you to go bankrupt, especially after being such a testimony.
         4. If your Home goes broke, you need to choose new Servants who can manage finances better & make you all get to work!
         5. Some have literally been robbing God, robbing us & robbing His people by mismanagement of His funds!--Not deliberately, but you just don't know how to handle them or what the priorities should be. You just don't know how to live within your income & you have been literally living on borrowed money & borrowed time & now have run out of both!
         6. When it comes to handling MONEY, you've got to have somebody who is BUSINESS-LIKE, tough, hard-boiled! That's where you need a TYRANT! That's where you need someone to crack the whip!
         7. Some people have the idea that running on FAITH means running it on NOTHING.--Faith is NOT nothing! "Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for." It's KNOWING God & that God IS, & that God is going to take care of you somehow if you OBEY Him & do His Will & His Work.--Heb.11:1,6.
         8. The only reason you're not paying your bills & are not going to eat is because you're not WORKING, or God would bless you with income. I have never known the time in 60 years of my life when I couldn't pay my bills or I couldn't eat! Never!
         9. If you're not willing to work just as hard or harder for the LORD than you did for the SYSTEM, then you ought to quit God's business & go back into the System & work for money. At least you'd be a better testimony! There's no reason why EVERY PERSON in EVERY ONE of your Homes can't get out!
         10. The only place where they cannot ALL go out EVERY day would be an OFFICE or PUB Home.--But those people are earning their salt by producing the LIT. And they had better have enough to keep them busy all day long or hit the streets with lit & the stores provisioning!
         11. One of the most important witnesses a Christian can have is paying his BILLS!--"Providing all things honest to them that are without."--1Tim.3:7; Rom.12:17; 2Cor.8:21. Some say, "Well he ought to forget the bill & donate it." I don't care how rich the corporation or the creditor is:
         12. Most of the rich men I knew wanted to see first of all how HONEST you were, how FAITHFUL, how DILIGENT you were, how hard you WORKED to TRY to pay your bills. THEN if they saw you did your BEST, they would turn around & try to HELP you.
         13. If you work hard & the field still doesn't pay for itself, then you need to find a NEW field, or you shouldn't have gone to that field in the first place.
         14. Maybe you're loafing, because your Home Servant hasn't got things ORGANISED & SCHEDULED, & the Shepherd doesn't HERD you out to go to work.
         15. I had that problem with personnel long ago in our first Soul Clinic school. Some of them never felt inspired to witness, the Spirit never moved them to go out door-to-door, so I moved them! I said, "Either you move out door-to-door or you move out!"
         16. If you're out of funds, you should all be out raising money the fastest way you can because you need immediate cash. EVERYONE should get out IMMEDIATELY LITNESSING & PROVISIONING
         17. MAIL PROVISIONING is going to take time, but somebody should START writing a prayer letter asking for help, & God knows you certainly need help!
         18. Make everybody sit down for at least 1-2 hours & write LETTERS HOME.--One letter to the parents, one letter to their self-supporting brothers & sisters, or relatives that they know could help them. Tell them we are in desperate need & having a hard time meeting our needs, could you please help us? Don't stop & wait for a prayer letter, write your OWN--TONIGHT!
         19. Somebody who knows something about writing PRAYER LETTERS can write a general prayer letter that they can put a few pictures in & stories of their accomplishments there, something that would be worth bragging about. Have this printed up as quickly as possible, & send them out right away! Get the mail provisioning rolling as quick as you can!
         20. Get on the ball! Let your friends know you're desperate for money. "Did you know we didn't have enough to eat at our house yesterday?" Or, "We haven't been able to pay the rent!"
         21. I'm getting fed up with people who don't show their gratitude by something MATERIAL. It's nice to say "thanks" or "I love you", but it doesn't pay the BILLS! They'd better start putting WORKS to their faith!--"Faith without works is DEAD" (Jam.2:17), & love without SOME material manifestation is DOUBLY dead!
         22. We're not CHARGING, but we expect people to show their THANKS & their appreciation, & they ought to give it more for LOVE than if we CHARGED them!
         23. If we've got any musicians around, they ought to get out & find a place to sing & play! Get out someplace & play music, if you have to do it in the park, bars or on the street with your wives & kids & pass the hat!
         24. If you've got anybody that's working on a SOUL you'd better get out & try to WIN them! Persuade some of these people who have gotten saved but who've been putting off being disciples to join & bring everything they have with them!
         25. Or persuade them to DROP IN, stay on their job but contribute toward the Family. You are now their CHURCH. Let me tell you, they wouldn't be going to the OTHER churches for NOTHING, right?
         26. If you can't do any one of the first 6 things, you should get a JOB! And if you can't get a good job THERE, I suggest you go someplace where you CAN.
         27. If you cannot earn your salt at one of those 6 methods of actual WITNESSING, you're no MISSIONARY! You don't know HOW to be a missionary! Go back home & get a GOOD job & make GOOD money & SEND the money to the folks that you KNOW are working hard & trying to be missionaries!
         28. We didn't get this far by my being an easy-going pushover! We got this far by my being like God!--A hard man who cracked the whip & wielded the rod & got you people to OBEY & DO what you were supposed to do!
         29. It's time to go back to WORK & work BETTER than we ever did before! I want to see you kids produce BETTER NOW than you did under the TYRANTS!--Not produce LESS but MORE! I'm going to be harder on you than the tyrants you had!
         30. I want to see you get out & produce MORE than before! I want to see you produce more now for the love of GOD & the love of SOULS & the love of your PROPHET in obedience to ME than you produced for those little tyrants!--And if you DON'T, you're not worth your salt!
         31. I want to see EVERYBODY doing whatever they can do BEST. If you can LITNESS better than anything else, LITNESS! If you can PROVISION better than anything else, PROVISION! If you can win SOULS & forsake-alls better than anything else, DO it!
         32. I can be HARD if I HAVE to be! The Lord Himself told the story: The man said, "Thou art an HARD MAN!" God said, "Well, you KNEW I was hard, so why didn't you do the JOB? Why did you just BURY your talent & sit around doing NOTHING?"--Mt.25:14-30. If any of you have buried your talent, you'd better dig it up! (Prays:)
         33. All right, Lord, we've given them the WORD & the ROD, now we ask YOU, in Jesus' name, to help the sheep to OBEY & GO where they're sent. The grass is there, Lord, all they need to do is go there & GET it & the wool will grow! They won't have to rob Thee anymore or rob us or Thy Work anymore, & rob the World of the ministry they're supposed to have.
         34. They're just falling down on THEIR ministry in all these fields, or You would have ministered to THEM. Their contacts & converts & others would have ministered to them. Either they don't know HOW to minister or they don't know how to make it PAY.
         35. If they're too God-damned proud to ASK for help, they're too God-damned proud to be in YOUR business, because that's what a great deal of it is, ASKING for HELP!--In Jesus' name, amen.
         36. One of the first lessons I ever had to learn was that you've got to be HUMBLE enough to ASK for it! You can't just wait until they voluntarily OFFER to give it, you've got to ASK them for it. And you girls who have been playing around with some fish for a long time & not gotten anything OUT of him, you're unprofitable servants!
         37. So you guys had better get on the ball & get out & get to WORK! The only Homes that are going to stay open now are the ones that are paying their way. We're not going to let you ROB GOD any more!
         38. No matter how much or how little you earn, you're going to give your 10% to GOD, no matter WHAT! Is that clear? No more borrowing funds from your TITHE box!
         39. I'm SICK of people who don't WORK!--People who won't WORK & can't make it PAY! SOME people have probably been doing ALL the work, MORE than their share, while others haven't done their OWN share. Some are OVER-worked while others are UNDER-worked. Get to WORK! It's your last chance!
         40. We're going to weed out the UNDER-workers & ship them someplace ELSE or hit the ROAD with them or send them HOME

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family