AFFLICTED PARENTS!       DFO 1112         3/12/81
--Is God Dealing with You Through Your Child?

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HomeARC note (10/98): The Charter states the Family's current principles, policies and attitudes regarding faith healing and getting outside medical attention, especially in regards to children.]

         1. TO PUT A WHOLE SECTION IN THE
FN from these different mothers whose children have the same disease & are sympathising with each other, handicapped mothers, it's getting to be sort of a society of mutual sympathisers. (Maria: In a way you can understand they were trying to help other parents.) But the greatest way they can help anybody is to face their own sins & the facts, that God is dealing with them for their sins. They need to wake up to what is wrong with them & seek God desperately to find out why He has had to go to the extreme of having to allow the child to be afflicted in order to affect them.
         2. I THINK SOME OF THESE PARENTS OF HANDICAPPED CHILDREN ARE MISSING THE POINT! They're missing the whole lesson by just sluffing it off & saying, "Well, it's just a little raw meat I ate" or "It was that stray cat we took in" or "My child just happened to catch the mumps." They don't really give spiritual reasons or spiritual causes or make spiritual confessions or seem to recognise how serious their spiritual disease is! They don't see that their own spiritual disease & condition of coldness, lukewarmness, disobedience & rebellion is as serious as the sin of witchcraft & idolatry (1Sa.15:23)--& that therefore God is cursing them for it & even letting their children suffer for it to try to show them what's wrong with them!
         3. THEY'VE BECOME JUST LIKE ONE WHO IS NUMB & PARALYSED & CAN'T EVEN FEEL THAT THEY HAVE A DISEASE ANYMORE, just like the lepers, unless they take a good look at themselves. But if they try to ignore it & just figure if they don't look at it it will go away & if they ignore it it will somehow not be there, they're gonna die of it!--When they refuse to recognise it, refuse to see it, refuse to admit that there's something terribly wrong with them for God to have to afflict their child that way, usually.
         4. I THINK IN A FEW RARE CASES, IT MIGHT BE THE LORD HAS HAD TO ALLOW IT TO TEACH THEM MORE LOVE & HUMILITY, UNDERSTANDING & SYMPATHY FOR OTHERS as well as recognising how difficult spiritual retardation & spiritual affliction & spiritual disease & sin are to deal with, & spiritual deafness & hardness of heart. But I can't just ignore the Scripture! He says, "Rather let it be healed!" (Heb.12:13) He certainly doesn't want that poor little child to stay that way, if He can possibly get through to the parents why the child is that way.
         5. SAMUEL SAID TO SAUL, "FOR TO OBEY IS BETTER THAN SACRIFICE & TO HEARKEN THAN THE FAT OF RAMS!" (1Sam. 15:22)--All this just going through the motions & the mechanics of witnessing & litnessing & going downtown with the children to sing once a week or whatever it is these System backslidden families do that claim to still be part of the Family & they tithe & they get the Magazine, they sacrifice. They're burning a little of the midnight fat reading the Magazine & maybe even the Word a little, but it all rolls off like water off a duck's back! They're insulated, they're waterproofed to it, the Water of the Word can no longer soak in.
         6. THEY ARE ALREADY SOAKED IN THE VENEER OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS & WATERPROOFING AGAINST THE WORD!--A thin paint of self-goodness & self-obedience & pretended service & ten-percent sacrifice when they ought to be giving 100% or 110%! So insulated, so waterproofed that it doesn't even soak in anymore! And so blind that they can't even see their handicapped diseased spiritual condition! So deaf they can't even hear the voice of God anymore! So hardened in their hearts they're completely darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, past feeling! Having been often reproved, hardening their hearts & necks, so that about all God has left to do is get them out of the way of others so they won't lead their children astray & won't be bad examples to other Christians.
         7. SO I THINK THESE PARENTS NEED TO COME OUT IN THE LIGHT & SEE THEMSELVES AS GOD SEES THEM & to recognise that they are bad--not good! They need to recognise these sins, face them, see them, hear them, get convicted of them, recognise they have them, recognise they have these spiritual diseases, handicaps, retardation, blindness, deafness, dumbness, disobedience. They've got to recognise it & see it & believe it & confess it & repent of it to be delivered!--And just ignoring it or overlooking it or trying to pretend it's not there or trying to pretend to their children it's not there is not going to cure it or get deliverance.
         8. THEY NEED TO FACE THEIR SINS & THEIR FAULTS & OPENLY SEE THEM, hear them, comprehend them, confess them & repent of them & desperately ask God to "deliver them out of them all" & "rather let it be healed" & expect God to do it!--Than to just put up with it & belittle it & minimise it & try to say, "Well, it's just some natural little almost normal thing, rather common, & it just happened accidentally or by some little mistake." They need to take it all more seriously.
         9. HE CAN HEAL THEM, HE CAN DELIVER THEM--& HE WILL!--If they make things right, confess & repent, receive the Word of the Lord, believe it, act on it, obey it, heed it, hearken! "Better to obey than sacrifice & to hearken than the fat of rams. For disobedience is the sin of witchcraft & rebelliousness is idolatry!" (1Sam.15:22,23) They need to see the awfulness of their sin & recognise it & confess it & get right with God & repent & repeat again their first works, go back to their first love (Rev.2:4,5), do the job God sent them out to the field to do & go back to the plow so that God will deliver them & their children.
         10. I JUST DON'T BELIEVE THAT GOD ALLOWS THE AFFLICTION OF LITTLE CHILDREN, innocent babies, unborn babies, for no reason or just a mere little natural cause or a little physical neglect or a little normal disease! I don't believe it! Nothing happens to a Christian by accident. [See Pro.26:2b.]
         11. SO YOU CAN'T JUST BLAME EVERYTHING ON NATURAL CIRCUMSTANCES OR CAUSES: "Oh, it's a common disease, it's a common childhood affliction, it's a well-known disease of pregnant mothers that affects their children, blah blah!" I don't think it should. I don't think it would if they were really desperate enough in prayer & constantly asking God to protect them & doing the best they can to protect themselves & eat the right foods & boil the water or whatever they have to do, plus obeying God & being in the right condition spiritually themselves & obedient & where they ought to be. They can't expect God's perfect protection & full blessings when they're not where they belong--either physically or spiritually.
         12. HEALING IS THERE!--And God says everything He can in His Word to encourage you to have faith to be delivered! But you can't be delivered & you can't have faith for it unless you are obedient & honest & confessing your unrighteousness & repent & return to obedience & the life God expects you to live, showed you you should live, & which even some of you once lived in obedience on the field.--See it, confess it, recognise it, get desperate in prayer about it & repent of it & get delivered so you can obey God & go back to the field, or obey God & go back to the field & prove that you really mean business even before He delivers you.
         13. A LOT OF PEOPLE WEREN'T HEALED TILL THEY WENT--"AS THEY WENT THEY WERE HEALED." (Lk.17:14) God's going to maybe have to make you prove this time that you mean business, & you may have to start obeying before He starts blessing! You may have to start really genuinely repenting & living a different kind of life & obeying & getting back on the job & on the wall before He delivers & heals. This time you've almost got to earn it.
         14. IT'S ONLY IN VERY RARE CASES THAT IT'S NOT THE FAULT OF THE PARENTS, VERY RARE! And they have too many of these cases in the Family to be rare exceptions. I think it's more likely a common fault as a result of backslidden parents & disobedient parents, dishonest parents, unrepentant parents, unconfessing parents who've left God's best & His Will & turned away from the Lord & His way, including His Word, even if they're still reading it, it doesn't affect them anymore.
         15. THOSE WHO ARE HONEST ABOUT IT & KNOW THAT IT WAS THE RESULT OF THEIR OWN SIN, there's some hopes for them. If they'll even confess it in their own hearts to the Lord, confess it to God, then they've reached the turning point where there's some way out & some way up. Because that's the first thing you've got to do to even be saved is see that you're a sinner, recognise it & confess it.
         16. LORD, IN JESUS' NAME, HELP THESE PEOPLE WHO ARE SOME OF THEM SUCH HARD CASES, SO DIFFICULT! They are so righteous, they are so good & they're Family Members, tithing, getting the Magazine, reading it, Thy Word, & teaching their children, trying to bring them up in the right way. But somewhere, Lord, they missed the mark, missed Your highest & best calling. You're trying to get through to them even yet, still trying to get through to them & wake them up, shake'm up, even through their pitiful little children!--To shock them to the realisation of how horrible their sins are & how terrible their spiritual condition, as a last chance, a last resort, a last affliction, a last chastisement.
         17. WAKE THEM UP YET, IF POSSIBLE, to see it & hear it & feel it & confess it & repent of it & get back where they belong before it's too late. Bless & help them, Lord, & help them to see it, & help them to confess it & get right, repent, back to the center of Thy will, the center of Thy blessings & "let it rather be healed & be delivered out of them all." In Jesus' name, amen. TYJ!
         18. IS THIS YOU? GHU!--And He will if you'll confess it & make it right by obeying & getting back into His will! Will you?--Or will you go on in your sins. It's YOU that caused it, & YOU'RE more afflicted than they [your afflicted children] are!


Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family