—Eternal vigilance: The price of freedom!DO 110416/11/78

Lessons learnt from the "Maltese Doublecross"!—By Father David

1. IT IS VERY SERIOUS & WE'RE FIGHTING A WAR, LORD, & WINNING BATTLE AFTER BATTLE! We need to look at the sober side of things sometimes, & not to be ignorant of the Devil, the Enemy, & his devices, but always be prepared, Lord, to give an answer, have an answer & to have a plan if possible. (We don't know what the future holds‚ but we know Who holds the future! Hallelujah!)

2. SOME PEOPLE IN THE PENTAGON were trying to draw up contingency plans on what to do if the U.S. lost on atom war. What should the people who are left do? Some of the red, white & blue patriotic, flag-waving, Americans did their best to defeat this idea & said‚

3. "WE SHOULDN'T EVEN THINK OF DEFEAT, MUCH LESS PLAN FOR IT!" Well, I don't know. Maybe that's the way you feel about it, but you can get a false sense of security & suddenly—boom!—Then you wish you had! You wish you had planned or counted on something else & had kept some other options open & had some other alternatives planned. I think that's what you all need to always remember.

4. WE HAVE ALWAYS TRIED TO DO THAT REGARDING OUR HOUSING & OUR LOCATIONS everywhere we have been. We've always thought, "Well, now, if we had to leave here, where could we go?"—And we studied travel books & tours & places & countries & their rules & regulations & all kinds of things, always trying to keep in mind that if we had to flee at a moment's notice we would have some idea of where would be a good place to go to next. We've always had to go sooner or later.—Why not you?

5. SO JUST IN CASE SOMETHING COMES ALONG TO UPSET YOUR NICE LITTLE STATUS QUO, WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS? What do you have planned as your next move?—And where?—And how?

6. AND THERE'LL PROBABLY BE SOME REASON WHY YOU'LL HAVE TO MOVE. That's not at all unlikely or improbable. It's not only possible, but it's quite probable, because you are aliens & foreigners & non-citizens, etc. Sooner or later you are going to find that it's getting a bit not!

7. WHAT I WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO IS MAKE OUT A LIST OF SUGGESTIONS & PLANS‚ WHAT THEY COMMONLY CALL CONTINGENCY PLANS. In other words, in case something doesn't work, what else would you try?

8. IT'S BETTER TO HAVE IT & NOT NEED IT THAN NEED IT & NOT HAVE IT, SO YOU BETTER BE PREPARED! …

9. I WANT TO SHAKE YOU OUT OF FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY & REMIND YOU WE HAVE NO SECURITY EXCEPT IN THE LORD & we cannot trust man whose breath is in his nostrils! Let every man be found a liar but God be found true! (Is.2:22; Ro.3:4.)

10. WE ARE IN DANGEROUS BUSINESS! We are probably hated almost worse than any religious group on the face of the Earth! Well, thank God, I think the Lord, in His mercy, sent along the Moonies & the Hare Krishna & TM & some of those to take a little of the heat off of us! They thought we were the big bad wolf & the worst that they had ever seen until the others came along‚ making us almost look like angels—well not entirely.

11. BELOVED‚ YOU'VE REALLY GOT TO CONFORM TO THE WAY THEY DO THINGS & THE WAY THEY WANT YOU TO LIVE OR ELSE! When they don't like you, don't want you, they will pick any kind of little speck of anything as an excuse to get rid of you!

12. IT OFTEN TAKES BUT ONLY ONE PERSON WHO IS MAD ENOUGH & ORNERY ENOUGH TO DO IT!—One person who goes & complains to the authorities, & they have to act on the complaint. A lot of times the authorities will overlook situations, if nobody complains, but it only takes one complaint, then they have to do their job & carry it out & enforce the law. It only takes one complaint.

13. SO TO STAY FREE‚ AS I'VE ALWAYS SAID, REQUIRES ETERNAL VIGILANCE—THE PRICE OF FREEDOM! I've forgotten who said it but it is certainly true. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom! And I might add‚ eternal security. Thank the Lord we have eternal security, spiritually, but on this Earth, physically, we have eternal insecurity, & you better remember it!—And not get too settled down & let the roots grow down too deep where you can't tear them out in a hurry if you have to, or cut them off & leave them behind!

14. I'M A LIVE FUGITIVE, & I'D RATHER BE A LIVE FUGITIVE THAN A DEAD HERO! I've left houses & lands & goods behind many times to save my life!

15. I NEVER UNPACK MY FLEEBAG! It's always there & I live out of it, believe it or not! I have myself packed up & my papers where I could throw things in my suitcase, in my briefcase in a few minutes, & be gone! I can do it real fast—could you? Maybe you ought to practice a few times! I hope the Lord doesn't have to give you some test runs! See how many pieces of luggage you can get your flee stuff into, how fast you can get it together & how quickly you can be out of the house & gone!

16. WELL MAYBE YOU MIGHT BE ALREADY GONE DOWNTOWN OR SOMEWHERE & phone up & find out, like we did. Would you have your stuff so organised that you would be able to tell them what to do with it & how to get it to you so you could stay away & go on your way?

17. YOU KNOW‚ SOME PEOPLE ARE SO ATTACHED TO THEIR THINGS, THIS WORLD, THEY OFTEN RISK THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR THINGS! People have been known to rush back into their burning houses to try & grab paintings off the walls, etc., & die! Lose their lives to save their things, & as a result, lose both! The rich get their satisfaction out of having too much, but I get a lot of satisfaction when I've packed too little!

18. YOU'D BETTER HAVE DECIDED AHEAD OF TIME WHAT'S EXPENDABLE & WHAT ISN'T, & you'd better keep them apart, keep them separate, so that you can, at a moment's notice, [forsake] all expendables & have the others that you cannot do without. …

19. FRANKLY, AS FAR AS OUR OWN FAMILY IS CONCERNED, I TOLD THEM, DON'T KEEP ANY FILES TWO MONTHS OLD!—Just current files only, just to keep tabs on what you're doing currently.

20. OVER THE YEARS OF HANDLING THE MAIL, WE LEARNED CERTAIN SYSTEMS OF SECURITY. Even if we lost pieces, we'd make sure we didn't lose either originals & copies or didn't lose track of something. We keep a strict mail log of every piece & each one is numbered & the contents of each listed, so if we lose anything we know what we lost & we are able to replace it.

21. THAT'S AN IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER IN HANDLING YOUR MAIL, that it's something really extremely vital & you don't want to lose track of it or lose a whole lot of work. Always remember to keep plenty of copies & always keep track of how many pieces you are sending & number them. We'd number them on the outside & stick our list on the inside, so the people receiving them can know that they are getting all of them.

22. OUR AUTHORITIES IN OUR FAMILY OUGHT TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT EVERY AREA & every country & ought to be reading everything they can get on the local situation. Let me tell you, when I was in Malta, I read every word in those Maltese papers—Dom's paper & the opposition's paper. I wanted to know exactly what the situation was there.

23. I COMB THE NEWSPAPERS NEARLY EVERY DAY‚ I don't have time every day, because of the way I comb the newspapers‚ it takes me two hours to read it. You can catch a lot of new things, you can catch ideas about which way the wind's blowing, how the government's going & what they are doing about this or that & the other & what the attitude is, & atmosphere in that country‚ its attitude towards strangers, & a lot of time you will find things in there about what they are going to do. We got a lot of tips & hints out of how the courts were dealing with cases & visas & all kinds of things.

24. SMALL TOWNS IN THE COUNTRY ARE THE WORST PLACES IN THE WORLD TO TRY TO [BE UNNOTICED]!—Because out in the country in small towns, they know everything that is going on. The best place in the World to get lost is a big, big, city, where nobody knows anybody & couldn't care less, that's the place to get lost!

25. WE WERE REAL CAUTIOUS ABOUT HOW WE [LEFT] PLACES. The whole mob of us didn't disappear over night. We went out in easy stages. We just [left] one by one‚ two by two, until finally there were only two people left!

26. BELOVED, YOU HAD BETTER BE PREPARED … to answer all possible questions. Don't be like that coloured fellow in the army that I told you about. During a battle they sent him but with a message from the trench to go over to another trench to give them the message. "Boss," he says, "there's bullets aflying around out there‚ & I'm apt to get it!" He said, "Don't worry, son‚ don't worry‚ you just zigzag, zigzag, & they'll miss you!"

27. WELL, HE NEVER MADE IT, but not long afterwards, the boss found him in a hospital all shot up. He said, "Whatever happened to you, Sam?" "Well, boss, you know, you told me to zigzag, & I guess I must have zigged when I should have zagged, & zagged when I should have zigged, because they hit me every time!" So, you've got to be prepared to know how you are going to zigzag. Not zig when you should have zagged‚ & zag when you should have zigged!

28. … How ready are you, packed up, & how sorted out have you got your goods & papers so that if you men had to pick up & leave in a hurry—it's the men they are really after, & you usually have the least luggage—you can just pick up & vamoose!

29. AS YOU NOTICED, WHEN WE GET [PERSECUTED] IT'S THE MEN THEY HARRASS & the men that they beat, it's the men they jail, & the man had better be ready to take off faster than the women! They usually figure it's not the woman's fault, thank God, & the women can get by with more than the men can, they can do a little FFing.

30. WOULD YOUR WIFE BE ABLE TO CARRY ON AFTER YOU & PACK UP, & bring the rest & be your rearguard with the children & follow you later?

31. WHERE WOULD YOU GO & … HOW WOULD YOU CARRY ON YOUR BUSINESS? How would you carry on your job & where do you think would be the best place for you to go temporarily if you all had to move?

32. COULD YOU SUDDENLY GET OUT THE MESSAGE WHERE ELSE TO GET YOUR PHONE CALLS & your mail & inform your constituents, if you were in a hurry? How fast could you do it? How quick would you reach them & how much mail would you lose in the meantime? What are you going to do with the accounts that are in the name of the group that's so hated? If they should outlaw them in this country, surely they wouldn't allow them to have bank accounts here in their name, or would they?—Maybe not even allow a post box in their name!

33. NEXT QUESTION, & THIS ONE IS GOING TO HURT, WHAT NATIONAL DO YOU HAVE READY IN TRAINING TO TAKE OVER THAT JOB IF IT WERE AN EMERGENCY? Who could possibly pick up the mail for you or handle the banking for you? Even if he didn't do anything but carry the cheques & cash the cheques & buy the cheques, even if the accounts & all are still in your name. What do you think you could do about it & how fast, before we lost any mail or money or any personnel?—Which is more precious than anything!

34. I GUESS THERE WILL STILL ALWAYS BE PLACES TO GO. You may not be able to stay very long but there is always some place to go, especially if you are just going as a tourist … & you stay only as a tourist & you leave as a tourist. …

35. … Better to have it [contingency plans] & not need it than need it & not have it! Amen?

36. LIVING IN LUXURY, SOME OF IT'S RATHER NEW FOR ME. I did when I was a kid but I haven't had very much since then. But I don't think the Lord wants you to get too used to it because you might not have it all your life. Because if you're going to survive, you're going to have to learn to live with a lot less, & keep moving! "Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, because they sought a city, whose builder & maker is God!"—"They were strangers & pilgrims on the Earth!"—Heb.11:13-16.

37. I'VE DONE A LOT OF MOVING LATELY & I've come to the point where believe it is possible that I might have to move again. But at the least, I hope, I'm ready for it now where I believe it is more than we were. "They confessed that they were pilgrims & strangers on the Earth. For he sought a city whose builder & make is God. Therefore, God was not ashamed to be called their God." (He.11:13,10,16.)

38. THAT'S ALMOST THE ONLY TIME IN THE WHOLE BIBLE WHERE IT ALMOST AS GOOD AS SAYS GOD IS PROUD OF YOU! Because you are willing, in other words, to be pilgrims & strangers & keep moving for His work's sake & His message, move whenever He says move, stop when He says stop, & go when He says go. We're mobile messengers!—And we wouldn't have reached the World with the message if we hadn't been!

39. LORD‚ WE THANK YOU FOR THIS LITTLE TIME TOGETHER & we take this warning seriously & heed it, to prepare & be always prepared‚ to move at a moment's notice & never get settled down too much & let our roots grow to deep.

40. WE REALISE A LOT HAVE GONE HOME BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T LIKE TO HAVE TO KEEP GOING SO MUCH & so they went back, they went to where they could settle down‚ even more secure. We also know that when the bombs begin to fall‚ they won't feel so secure. They may have security for false security for the moment, but it's not going to last for long. They have traded the security of the moment for the insecurity of the future. We are remaining, in a sense, insecure now, temporarily how, mobile now, in order that we might continue longer, if possible‚ even after they in America are gone.—Heb.12:24-27.

41. WE ARE VAGABONDS & PILGRIMS & STRANGERS & GYPSIES, but those people have lasted the longest when many other securer nations & empires have been completely wiped out! So, help us‚ Lord.

42. HELP THEM, LORD, TO BE FAITHFUL TODAY, NOT TO WORRY BUT TRUST YOU! You don't have to worry about tomorrow, but He didn't say not to make plans for tomorrow.—Amen? So make the plans! In fact, maybe if you plan enough you won't worry about it‚ you wouldn't have to worry as much. I'd be a lot more worried if you don't plan, God bless you! TYL!—Plan NOW!—TODAY!—Tomorrow will be too late!—GHU!—Amen?