SPIRITUAL BABIES!        DO 2409          1/88
--Don't Expect Too Much!--It Takes TIME!
--A response to reports from Marianne about her team's new CLUB MINISTRY!

         1. THE THING TO DO IS TO GIVE THE LIT TO THE MEN, MAKE IT AVAILABLE. Don't push it too hard. Just give it to them & when they feel the need for it, they'll read it. They may not even admit it or want the girls to know that they're hooked. Like the Jews, they never want to admit that they're sold. They could be secretly reading it all the time & never even admit it.--Especially those big businessmen, important people. They're not going to act like little school boys & say, "Yes, I did my lesson, now give me another one!" You just need to give it to them & make it available & hope & pray that they'll read it. They could very tactfully ask them sometimes, "Did you read that little thing I gave you?--It had the answer to your question about this or that."
         2. THE JAPANESE ARE SO MUCH LIKE THE JEWS, IT'S AMAZING! They've just about gotta be Jews! They're so hard to sell & even if they're sold, they don't want to admit it. You've just got to keep on sowing the Word, being patient, just like a mother with a little baby, & they're almost as slow to learn. But if they're really BORN, genuinely BORNAGAIN, they should be HUNGRY.--Only unlike little natural human babies, they're old & proud & don't want to ADMIT they're hungry. But when they get home alone, I'm sure if they're REALLY hungry they'll read it. (Maria: Some of them don't get hungry until they really get into a tight spot, too, like that dear doctor they wrote us about, the man who had to get in a motorcycle accident & land in the hospital for a month before he'd LISTEN! Maybe now he'll be more receptive!)
         3. DON'T FORGET, FOR NINE MONTHS THE BABY NEVER ADMITS IT'S HUNGRY, BUT IT'S ABSORBING ALL THE TIME. It never yells or screams or cries & demands food, it's quite silent, but it's slowly growing. Look at it that way. It takes NINE MONTHS for a human baby to grow from conception when the seed first takes root, or begins to take root. It takes nine months of quiet, patient nurturing, feeding, even silently, before the baby is grown strong enough to really be born, to come out in the open & confess that he is born & alive & cry for food, admit he's hungry!
         4. YOU'VE JUST GOTTA GO SLOW & NOT BE TOO PUSHY. I think some of you mothers are in such a hurry to have babies born you just want to push them out prematurely, & it's not very safe to have premature babies. It's better that they get FULLY developed inside, out of sight, unapparent really, in a sense in your heart, safe & well-protected & even silent, until finally you begin to really FEEL them, feel that they're really growing. The time will come when they really are willing to come out in the open & let it be known that they're really hungry & they're really born-again. It just takes TIME!

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WITNESSING IN A CHRISTIAN & A PAGAN CULTURE!

         5. I THINK THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE WITH THE JAPANESE. Don't expect so many instant salvations there like you got in places like the Philippines where they are supposedly instantly born again & are quickly willing to confess it, where they don't really have to pay a PRICE for it, where they don't have to, you might say, really change their religion or receive persecution or criticism or scorn or ridicule for being a Christian.
         6. REMEMBER, THOSE PEOPLE IN THE PHILIPPINES HAVE HAD THE SEED FOR YEARS, THEY'VE BEEN IN THE PREGNANCY FOR YEARS, you guys just came along & reaped'm, on which others had bestowed labours, on which you really bestowed no labour, but you entered into other men's labours.--John 4:38.
         7. THE SEED HAD BEEN GROWING IN SOME OF THOSE PEOPLE FOR YEARS, in fact some of them were probably even already saved because of their faith. They just didn't know how to express it. They didn't know how to actually confess it, come out in the open with it. They really didn't hardly know what they were doing until you came along & pushed them out, shoved them out, got them to come out in the open & holler & confess their faith, confess that they're saved & born-again.
         8. THE JAPANESE PEOPLE HAVE NEVER REALLY KNOWN THE TRUTH OR HEARD THE TRUTH, HARDLY EVER. They don't even know Who Jesus is supposed to be! They don't even understand what it's all about, you have to explain it to them from scratch. They don't even know they need Him. They're so selfsatisfied & self-righteous.

SOW THE SEED, THEN HAVE A LITTLE PATIENCE!

         9. BUT IF YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE THEM REALLY BORN ALIVE & NOT STILL-BORN, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE SURE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING! You've got to base it on the SCRIPTURE! You've got to tell them, "This is what God SAID, this is His WORD! He promised that if you'd do THIS, He'd do THAT!--That if you'd believe in Jesus, receive Him as your Saviour, you're saved & you'll go to Heaven! You've got to plant your faith in this Word, in this verse. Now, you've prayed, you've received Jesus, how do you know you're saved?" They've got to be able to at least quote some little tiny bit of Scripture, they've got to have at least one verse, one phrase.
         10. IT MAY TAKE AWHILE TO GET'M TO REALLY HAVE THAT CONVICTION IN THEIR OWN HEARTS TO REALLY BELIEVE THE WORD! "Faith cometh by hearing the Word" (Rom.10:17), BELIEVING the Word, & that's something that only a miracle of God can do, you can't do it. All you have to do is PRESENT the Word, & GOD is the One Who has to put the FAITH in their heart. YOU don't put the faith in their heart, you put the WORD in their heart. THEY have to respond with the LIFE by FAITH.
         11. WHEN A WOMAN CONCEIVES IT'S BECAUSE THE EGG IS ALREADY THERE. The man just sows the seed & it reaches the egg. The egg of the possibility, the egg of the opportunity, the egg of the potential is already there, God has put it there. You just sow the seed & the seed finally reaches the egg. It may take some of those Seeds you've sown several weeks before they finally reach the potential that God has placed there, the possibility of the faith that God has put there, the potential faith, the potential egg, ready to be conceived, ready to be penetrated with the Word, with the Seed.
         12. SO HAVE A LITTLE PATIENCE! Your job is NOT making them believe, believe it or not!--Only GOD can make them believe! Your job is just to sow the WORD, sow the SEED, & if there's an egg there, then they'll finally receive it. It may take awhile, you may have sown the Seed for several weeks or even months before it finally takes root, before GOD is able to persuade them to believe. Only GOD can make them believe, only GOD can give them faith. (Maria: We just have to pray for them.)--Amen!
         13. FAITH IS A GIFT, GOD'S WORD SAYS SO!--1Cor.12:9. He doesn't necessarily give it to everybody you give the Word to, either. He doesn't necessarily give it to everybody that you give the Seed to. Not all seeds are received & not all seeds penetrate & conceive. But then sometimes it takes weeks or months, it might even take YEARS in the case of some! You just have to be patient. For goodness sake, at least be as patient as a mother who has conceived a human baby! It takes NINE MONTHS before SHE'S able to bring it to the birth. All they have to do is continue to receive the Seed & let it be sown, in this case by you.
         14. IF YOU WANT TO FOLLOW THE HUMAN PARALLEL, YOU PROVIDE THE FERTILE GROUND IN A WAY FOR THE SEED. GOD is the One Who is your HUSBAND Who sows the Seed in YOU, & you are the fertile ground that receives it & finally it springs forth. Well, they are the same: If they're the Bride of Christ, if they're going to be the one who receives the Seed & they're going to be brought to the birth, born again, then you're going to have to be PATIENT, especially in this case, because they have no CONCEPT. It's strange how that word is related to CONCEPTION. They have no CONCEPT of the Seed or the Word or Jesus. You have to keep sowing that Seed so they'll begin to understand. In a sense you have to keep painting a picture for them. You just have to keep sowing the Seed. You're just a vehicle, really. GOD is the One Who has GIVEN the Seed, & you just bear it to them & plant it, & whether it grows or not is up to the Lord AND them. They have to be fertile ground & it has to be received & believed.
         15. BUT YOU'VE JUST GOT TO BE PATIENT. It takes awhile for them to even understand or comprehend. It takes awhile for God to bring about that faith in their hearts. They can't be expected to believe something they don't even KNOW anything about. You have to give the Word TIME to take ROOT! You've got to give them time to CONCEIVE.
         16. YOU MIGHT BE NURTURING THAT SEED FOR MANY MONTHS BEFORE IT'S ABLE TO COME TO THE BIRTH. They might have even PRAYED the first time you met'm, but didn't really know what they were doing. You've got to gradually FEED them & SHOW them what they did.
         17. JUST BE PATIENT, GIVE IT TIME! Those people really don't know anything about the Lord or Jesus or God. All they've heard about is Christianity, that there's another religion that has some temples sort of like theirs where those people go & do their praying to their gods. They just figure you're another religion, you just don't happen to worship the same gods.

JESUS: IN A CLASS BY HIMSELF!

         18. YOU'VE GOT TO SHOW THEM THAT THAT'S NOT IT! Churchianity is not it! Christianity is not just another religion. It's kind of like the teacher of philosophy at the college who was listing all of the various great teachers & philosophers. I think it happened in China. He knew there was at least one Christian student in his class, so to please him he put Jesus at the head of the list, & he smiled contentedly that he had pleased the student, the Christian boy. Instead of that the Christian boy ran forward & said, "Oh no sir, no sir, He's not at the head of the list!" And He erased Jesus' name & he said, "He's not even ON the list of philosophers!" And he put it way over on another big side of the board. He said, "Jesus is not a philosopher, He's not just a teacher, He's not just another god, He is THE only Saviour, the only One Who died & was resurrected! All the rest of them died & are dead!" Jesus is in a class all by HIMSELF! He is the only true Saviour, Son of God! He's not just a philosopher, not just another teacher of ethics.--Christianity is not just another system of ethics. Well, Christianity may be, but JESUS isn't!

GIVE THE SEED TIME TO GROW!

         19. ALL OF THIS IS VERY HARD FOR THEM TO BELIEVE, IT TAKES TIME, & only God can actually have them conceive the faith. YOU have to sow the Seed, you have to bring them the Word, but only GOD can give the FAITH.--And, of course, that depends on whether they RECEIVE it or not. But if they receive that Seed, if they're fertile ground, good ground that God has prepared in advance, that God knows is going to be receptive, they WILL receive it & they will conceive & they will eventually be BORN!
         20. BUT DON'T EXPECT IT ALL TO HAPPEN OVERNIGHT IN ONE NIGHT'S MEETING! They may be praying that little prayer just to please you, not because they understand it, maybe not even because they believe it! They're just doing it to be polite. That's how the Orientals are! They believe you because you said it. And that's a little tiny grain of mustard seed FAITH! But you've got to give it time to GROW, to nourish & cherish the baby & help it to grow strong.
         21. WHEN THAT BABY'S FIRST BORN, HE'S NOT ABLE TO STAND A LOT OF PERSECUTION & OPPOSITION & HARDSHIP, he has to have a lot of love & tender loving care & nurturing & feeding & loving till he grows strong enough to grow up & start witnessing to others, start planting the seed in OTHER mothers.
         22. SOME OF YOU EXPECT THE POOR FELLOWS TO GROW UP OVERNIGHT! You can't understand why he's not really reading the Word & why he's not witnessing to his friends, why he's not tithing & giving & doing his share! What BABY does his share of the HOUSEWORK? What baby does his share of the litnessing? What baby does his share of fund-raising & giving? (Maria: A baby is very selfish!) What baby does ANYTHING but beg for food & just grow! What baby starts walking as soon as he's born? What baby starts talking as soon as he's born? What baby starts dressing himself as soon as he's born?--Clothing himself, feeding himself? What baby has to do ANYTHING but just be CARED FOR when he's first born?
         23. DON'T EXPECT SO MUCH! Don't expect such rapid growth! Some of you people expect the baby to be born full-grown, ready to go to work, dressing & feeding himself! You've got to KEEP feeding him! YOU'RE the mother, YOU'VE got to feed him! He can't feed himself, all HE can do is RECEIVE it! (Maria: Babies are very selfish, they just TAKE all the time. They can't GIVE yet.) They can't even do a THING for themselves, much less for anybody ELSE! You've got to give them TIME to GROW! Why do you think the Lord compared it to a BABY being born?
         24. (MARIA: WE'VE ALWAYS EXPECTED SO MUCH OF OUR DISCIPLES WHO JOIN THE FAMILY FULLTIME, the first day they'd be out there witnessing.) THEY'RE usually from a CHRISTIAN culture. Most of the salvations & the people that we have in the Family, let's face it, were themselves born in a Christian culture.

CONCEPTION CAUSING CONCEPTS!

         25. SO THEY'RE NOT NECESSARILY GOING TO POP OUT THE MINUTE YOU SOW THE SEED!--Not in Japan & not in many countries like it, & not in many places of other religions. You're going to have to PATIENTLY, gently, lovingly KEEP sowing the Seed & NURTURING it & CULTIVATING it, FERTILISING it, WATERING it with your tears of concern & love till it finally grows enough that it's even able to be born!--Give it TIME!
         26. A LOT OF THOSE PEOPLE PRAYED THE PRAYER JUST BECAUSE YOU ASKED THEM TO, not because they UNDERSTOOD what they were doing. You've got to KEEP sowing the Seed to give them the real faith for it to really conceive, to really conceive FAITH in them, to help them get a CONCEPT of what they're doing! That's CONCEPTion! What is a concept? It's an idea, it's sort of a knowledge of what they're doing. What concept do they have of Christianity, Jesus, God, the Bible? What do they know about it? That's what conception is, it's to have a concept of something, to KNOW something!
         27. THE BIBLE SPEAKS ABOUT "& HE KNEW HIS WIFE," which meant that he had given her a CONCEPT of his love, sown the seed to give her a concept, CONCEPTION! "And Adam KNEW Eve, his wife, & she CONCEIVED & bare a son!"--Gen.4:1. The Seed you sow gives them a CONCEPT, the knowledge of the Truth through the Seed of the Word. So they get that CONCEPT, that KNOWLEDGE, which helps them to CONCEIVE, CONCEPTION, & THEN they can start growing!
         28. IN A SENSE, THE DEAR LITTLE FETUS IS BEING FORCE-FED. It has nothing in the World to do with feeding himself then. He's literally being force-fed. You've got to keep feeding them, you've got to keep giving them the Word & nourishing them, cherishing them, even BEFORE they're born! You've got to remember that, that that's the way it is.
         29. IN NON-CHRISTIAN CULTURES THEY HAVEN'T HAD ALL THAT KNOWLEDGE, THAT CONCEPTION OF GOD & JESUS & SIN & SALVATION ETC. In a sense, Christian cultures have already had concepts of the Truth, they have the knowledge, the conception of the Truth, in which case you might say it's already conceived & been developing but not born again yet. The Seed's been sown & the concept is there, conception has taken place, really. One sows, one waters & you come along & do the reaping, you push the baby out, you bring it to the birth by confession of faith. (Maria: But then GOD has to give the increase.) The Lord brings it to the birth.

FEEDING, CARING FOR & RAISING BABIES--GIVE'M TIME!

         30. YOU HAVE SOME OF THE WORK ASSOCIATED WITH IT, YOU FEED YOURSELF & THAT FORCE-FEEDS YOUR BABY. (Maria: That's a good parallel too, you have to feed YOURSELF in order to be ABLE to feed the BABY.) Amen! You'd better keep feeding yourself the Word so you'll have enough nourishment for the child! Some mothers in the animal world or the world of living things have to feed themselves first, to masticate & chew the cud, then they regurgitate that food & feed it to their babies, all nice & ground & mixed with their juices & everything, & feed it to the baby.
         31. LET'S FACE IT, EVEN AFTER THE BABY'S BORN, HE IS HUNGRY, BUT YOU HAVE TO SHOW HIM WHERE IT IS, you have to put his mouth to it. He's got to learn to really take ahold & suck! Later on as it gets older, you've virtually got to force-feed him. You've got to prepare the food & spoon-feed it to his mouth. I've had to force-feed many a baby, shove it in his mouth, even when he didn't want it.
         32. YOU'VE GOT TO FEED A BABY YOURSELF FOR A LONG TIME BEFORE HE LEARNS TO FEED HIMSELF. Don't expect newborn babies to be able to feed themselves, you're expecting too much! You've gotta FORCE-FEED'M! Do it with love & patience & hope that they'll be hungry enough to even at least be spoon-fed! If a baby is even willing to be spoon-fed, you're thankful that he's hungry enough to want to learn to eat it from the spoon.
         33. SO I THINK SOME OF YOU ARE EXPECTING TOO MUCH OF THOSE UNBORN BABIES, & even of the NEWborn babies, in a culture which has not prepared them for it, ground which is not really prepared for it. YOU have to PREPARE the ground, you've gotta do it ALL! Nobody ahead of you has plowed the ground, broken up the soil, softened the surface. Nobody ahead of you has planted the seed or fertilised it or watered it or anything! You're starting with nothing but the bare soil, unprepared, unbroken, unfertilised & unwatered!
         34. THE BABY CAN DO NOTHING FOR ITSELF WHATSOEVER, IT'S TOTALLY HELPLESS! Human babies are the most helpless babies in the whole World! Many other babies of other forms of life can immediately start helping themselves. I would say that most forms of animal life are born much better prepared to face life than the human babies & don't need so much absolute total care.
         35. SOMETIMES I THINK SPIRITUAL BABIES ARE EVEN MORE HELPLESS! SO GIVE'M TIME! Nourish, feed, love, care for, protect, help & give'm time to grow & get strong & learn. They have to LEARN all these things! They have so MUCH to learn! Look how long it takes a baby to learn so many things, to even learn to eat, to feed himself. He has to learn to crawl, stand up, walk, talk, feed himself, dress himself, so much to learn!--Then learn to grow up to where he's old enough to help his brothers & sisters & to care for THEM.
         36. IT TAKES A LONG TIME BEFORE A CHILD IS THAT OLD & ABLE TO CARE FOR OTHERS. How long? How old does a child have to be to start caring for his baby brothers or sisters?--Years! YEARS before he's able to mind the baby or watch the baby, hold the baby's bottle, help the baby learn to walk. I'd say they have to be at least five or six years old.

DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH TOO FAST!

         37. I THINK WE'RE TOO IMPATIENT, I THINK WE'RE EXPECTING TOO MUCH OF HEATHEN CULTURES! You expect instant adults. The minute they pray the prayer & receive Jesus you expect them to be fullgrown immediately!--"Here's some literature, get out & start witnessing! Get out & start having babies yourself!" You're crazy! They're not ready for that!
         38. (MARIA: NO MATTER WHAT CULTURES THEY'RE FROM, WHEN THEY'RE FIRST BORN THEY CAN'T USUALLY STAND ON THEIR OWN & have the strength & conviction to witness for a long time.) Especially when they're full-grown men, full-grown adults already. They have had OTHER ideas, OTHER concepts, PREconceived ideas about Christianity & Christians & Jesus & God & the Bible & their own religion & everything else. You've got a lot of work to do, a lot of digging to do to clear away the chaff & to clear away the debris & to clear away all the other junk before you can really start building. It's a monumental task, it's almost discouraging to even think of what a big job it is!
         39. JUST REMEMBER THE OLDER ONES ARE HARDER TO GET, THEY'RE HARDENED IN THE MOLD, hardened in the shell, & if you get one of those, you've really got something! It's a lot easier to go out & win little CHILDREN to the Lord. But they may not really know what they're doing & they can't be much help right away. It's a lot easier to go out & win TEENAGERS to the Lord. They don't know what they're doing either, but at least you can TEACH them what to do pretty fast & how to do it & be a help.
         40. SO DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH! Don't expect more than is even possible with GOD! It's just a miracle of God that you've had the Salvations you've had amongst older people & that they've shown ANY signs of being genuinely born-again & being genuinely alive spiritually, & that they're even feeding at all from YOU, much less feeding THEMSELVES! And certainly when they're just spiritual BABIES you can't expect them to start showing the attributes of an ADULT, to get out & witness to others & win souls!

GET'M TO GIVE!

         41. (MARIA: PEOPLE ARE SO USED TO DOING GOOD WORKS TO GAIN FAVOUR OF WHATEVER IT IS, God or their system or something, that it would be almost easier to get them to GIVE than it would to WITNESS, because in a way, GIVING sort of salves their conscience. So at least we could tell them, "Okay, if you want to serve God, but you're not willing to go out & witness & tell everybody, at least you could GIVE to help US to do it!")--Right!
         42. IN FACT, I THINK IT WOULD BE MUCH EASIER TO PERSUADE MOST PEOPLE TO FIRST GIVE OF THEIR FUNDS THAN TO GIVE THEMSELVES TO THE LORD! I think they can understand giving, contributing, donating to a worthy cause, like our children's School there in Japan. I think it would almost be better to ask them to GIVE FIRST & get SAVED LATER, believe it or not! I think they could be persuaded to GIVE more easily than to get SAVED!
         43. THEY UNDERSTAND GIVING, THEY UNDERSTAND DONATING, THEY DO A LOT OF THAT IN THE EAST! They can understand GIVING more easily than getting SAVED! Maybe you ought to start working on the GIVING FIRST, talking about the giving FIRST in some ways!
         44. (MARIA: I THINK IT DEPENDS ON THE INDIVIDUAL. Because on the other hand, different people in Japan & Thailand have reported about a lot of people that in going out & giving them the Tapes & Posters & saying, "Wouldn't you like to buy Tapes & Posters, wouldn't you like to give to our Work" etc., they will many times flatly reject you. But if you'll try to get them SAVED, & they GET saved, their whole attitude changes & THEN they'll give because the Holy Spirit works in their hearts.) That's fine, all right, whatever you feel led. (Maria: It might depend on the individual, whatever it takes.) If you can't get them saved, maybe you'll have to persuade them then, "Well, if you don't want to get SAVED, at least HELP us!-GIVE!" But it depends on the individual and the situation, the Lord will have to lead you, that's all.

THE BEST KIND OF MISSIONARIES: PATIENT, PLODDING FARMERS!

         45. DON'T GIVE UP, DON'T LOSE PATIENCE, DON'T GET DISCOURAGED TOO QUICKLY & TOO EASILY. Just make up your mind it's going to take time & just be faithful & patient. I remember they asked one missionary, "What's the best kind of missionaries?--The bright boy wonders? The guys who know it all & have been through college & theological school & know all the answers & everything else?" He said, "No, we've found that FARMERS make the best MISSIONARIES. They're used to just plodding along & being patient, working hard, preparing the ground, sowing the seeds, fertilising, watering, taking care of the new little plants. They're the ones who really know how to just patiently plod along, & have lots of patience to wait for it to grow.--FARMERS make the best MISSIONARIES!"
         46. WELL, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO SORT OF BE A FARMER NOW & LEARN HOW TO BE A PATIENT PLODDING FARMER. Just keep faithfully preparing the ground, breaking up the hard ground, softening it up with your tears, praying for it, watering it, fertilising it & being patient before you even see any signs of growth.
         47. (MARIA: THE FIRST MISSIONARIES TO SOME NON-CHRISTIAN FIELDS LABOURED FOR YEARS before they had ONE CONVERT! Most of our people would have given up way before then!)
         48. I'LL NEVER FORGET THE STORY ABOUT THE PIMA INDIANS ON THE PIMA RESERVATION near where I built that church at Valley Farms, Arizona. By that time the Pimas were all Christians & had churches of their own. But the first missionary, a Presbyterian missionary, a real genuine Christian, born-again & loved the Lord, who came there to work on this reservation with the Pima Indians, he worked there, he even built a little chapel & tried to get them to come to the chapel, to the sermons etc. They'd sometimes come & just sit there like bumps on a log, they didn't know what was going on.
         49. HE WORKED THERE FOR NINE YEARS BEFORE HE HAD HIS FIRST CONVERT! (Maria: And that was in America!) NINE YEARS on an Indian reservation in the U.S.A. before he had his FIRST CONVERT! So what do you expect? (Maria: I think Adoniram Judson in Burma worked 12 years before HE had ONE CONVERT! There have been stories of that over & over & over.) Especially on totally PAGAN HEATHEN fields!
         50. WORKING WITH TOTALLY HEATHEN PAGAN RELIGIONISTS, YOU JUST CAN'T EXPECT INSTANT BELIEVISM, instant Salvation, instant birth, instant growth, instant full-grown Christians! You just can't expect it. You can be thankful if you get ONE saved eventually! What are YOU expecting? I think some of you are expecting TOO MUCH!
         51. THANK GOD THAT SOME OF THEM HAVE HEARD A LITTLE BIT ABOUT CHRIST & God & there has been a little bit of Truth that's been planted, but you just can't expect to come right along & reap instantly what others have NOT planted & what others have NOT watered, where others have NOT sown! You're just going to have to trust the Lord that you're doing the best you can & KEEP sowing!
         52. YOU'RE JUST STARTING TO SOW A LOT OF SEED THAT MAY YET HAVE TO BE WATERED & CERTAINLY WILL STILL HAVE TO BE REAPED! Maybe we won't reap a lot of this Seed we've sown by the millions of copies until the MILLENNIUM! You might reap SOME of it now, & it's a miracle you do. That's pretty fast. Even after 16 years in Japan we're still not getting much reaping.
         53. (MARIA: LIKE YOU SAID, ONE OF THE MAIN WAYS OF FEEDING A NATURAL BABY IS VIRTUAL FORCEFEEDING. So if it just goes out in a Tape or a Poster & you never even see the person or never talk to them, never follow up on them, you can't expect them to be BORN!--Or to GROW! Our Family has got to faithfully PERSONALLY WITNESS & FOLLOW UP on people, they've GOT to do that.) You need to FIND them & you need to FOLLOW-UP on them, you need to FEED them, you need to CARE for them & BRING'M UP! Bring'm to the point where they can care for themselves & for others, THEN they're an adult.
         54. AS THEY SAY, YOU'RE NOT REALLY AN ADULT UNTIL YOU'VE HAD CHILDREN OF YOUR OWN. That's a long ways in the future for some people! They're not even a CHILD yet, they're just BABIES! Some aren't even babies yet, they're just getting conceived. Some of them aren't even CONCEIVED yet, you're still sowing Seeds hoping one of them will spring to life!
         55. SO GOD BLESS YOU & HELP YOU & GIVE YOU THE PATIENCE OF THE PLODDING FARMER. Don't expect too much. But have hope & prayer & faith to expect SOMETHING for all your efforts. If you never see ANYTHING, then there must be something wrong. God will give you a little encouragement here & there. Once in awhile somebody will spring to life, somebody will pop out, & you'll see some results, thank the Lord! But don't expect too much in a heathen, pagan, totally non-Christian field. Just be patient & plod & keep praying!--In Jesus' name, amen! (Maria: Amen, PRAYER is a real KEY!)
         56. THE LORD HAS TO DO IT, IT'S JUST YOUR JOB TO SOW IT & FEED IT! (Maria: And pray that the Lord will work in their hearts.) GOD has to give the growth, GOD has to give the INCREASE! PTL! KEEP PUMPING IN THE SEEDS!--SOME ARE BOUND TO CONCEIVE! KEEP FEEDING'M & YOURSELF!--AND GIVE'M TIME TO BE BORN & GROW!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family