—DECISIONS! CHILDREN & CHOICE!DO 20603/85

1. TUESDAY IS TECHI'S BIRTHDAY!—(MARIA: AND DAVIDA'S IS ON FRIDAY.) They're three days & three years apart! Dear Sara came to Tenerife & fulfilled the tradition of the Tenerifans! The Tenerifans just openly proclaim that if you're a barren woman who wants to have children & never could have children, "Just come to Tenerife & we'll give you children!" Well, I do sometimes wonder about that German man next door, considering Davida's looks! No, I'm just kidding, Alf! I'm sure she's yours! But that doesn't make any difference! What difference does it make?

REAL PARENTS!

2. I'VE SEEN SOME MOVIES LATELY ABOUT CHILDREN WHO WERE ADOPTED & DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE ADOPTED, & then they're so shocked & horrified & in great despair because they find out that the parents who reared them from babyhood or childhood & who they always thought were their so–called "real" parents, flesh parents, suddenly they found out they weren't & they just go into a tailspin! Isn't that ridiculous?

3. WHO ARE YOUR REAL PARENTS?—THE ONES WHO ACT LIKE REAL PARENTS OUGHTTA ACT!—The ones who love you & take care of you & act as mother & father to you, they're the ones who are your real parents! Just the fact that somebody had you as a baby & then father or mother or both abandoned you doesn't mean a thing! So what? Why should people like that get all upset? We've seen that in a couple of movies now. There are some people who go into a great lifelong search trying to find their original parents, the mother who gave them away or the father who abandoned them & deserted the mother & child, & they spend no end of time & effort & agony & money trying to locate their original parents who apparently didn't even want them in the first place! Why should they want to find them?

4. IN ONE CASE THE GIRL SEARCHES ALMOST ALL HER LIFE FOR HER MOTHER IN ORDER TO GET REVENGE FOR BEING DESERTED! Well, I can see a certain amount of motivation in that, but it's a pretty unsatisfactory motivation, it's certainly not a legitimate motivation to spend your whole life trying to find your mother because you want to take vengeance on her for abandoning you, or to get revenge on your father for his forsaking you & your mother. Isn't that horrible that there are people with such hatred, holding so much against their flesh mother or father that they want to follow them all their lives to try to find them to get vengeance or revenge for them forsaking or abandoning them? Forget'm, for goodness sake!

5. THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE IN OUR FAMILY & IT'S TRUE THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE WORLD TODAY where there are a lot of separations, divorces & family breakups where the child is left with one or the other parent or no parents, that the one who loves you & cares enough about you to take care of you, that's your parent!—And in our Family it should be every adult in the Family! As I've said many times, our children are our children, all of our children, & we are all their parents! Even if you never had a personal baby yourself, these are your children & you're obligated to help take care of them! We have many families where there are many children who have no father or no mother as far as the flesh is concerned …, but here they are & we love them & we've cared for many of them since babyhood, childhood, since they were born. Who else should get the credit for being their parents but the ones who love them & whom they love & have never known anyone else most of their life?

6. SO I DON'T AGREE WITH THIS BUSINESS OF CREATING SUCH A FUROR & BEING IN SUCH SHOCK AT FINDING OUT YOU'RE ADOPTED! YOU OUGHT TO BE SO THANKFUL YOU'RE ADOPTED! Your original parents didn't have any choice in the matter‚ they just had you, that was all. But adopted parents made a choice! They chose to have you‚ they wanted to have you, & they took you & they had you & took care of you all your life! So why go into such a tailspin over the fact you discovered they weren't your actual flesh parents? Isn't that silly?—It's stupid! Well‚ that was a good subject to clarify, this business about getting all uptight about finding out you're adopted, that So-&-so wasn't your real father or mother‚ blah blah! Your real father & mother are the ones who really love you & really take care of you! That's your real father & mother!

7. I REMEMBER BILLY GRAHAM MADE A POINT ON THAT ONCE. He was talking about 10:36ers, believe it or not, because he's had a few problems along that line too. He's won a lot of souls to the Lord & a lot of kids have had a complete change of personality & change of heart‚ life & everything through coming in answer to his altar calls & returned home a different person that their parents could hardly recognise, just like us! It works in any area in anybody's ministry who is dealing in the Lord & Salvation, it's going to bring a transformation. You become a new soul with a new heart, new mind, a new person! You're supposed to put away the old things & the old man becomes a new man or woman. You're changed! You are different!

8. YOU ONCE WERE JUST YOUR PARENT'S CHILD, NOW YOU'RE THE LORD'S CHILD, NOW YOU BELONG TO JESUS! He is the main Parent who is responsible for you & who loves you the most of anybody, who loves you more than anybody & who takes care of you the most & loves you the most, & has since before you were born! So why should you give first allegiance to your natural flesh parents above God? God says, "I will have no other gods before Me! For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God‚ visiting the sins of the parents unto the 3rd & the 4th generation!" (Exo.20:3‚5)

CHOICE & CHILDREN!

9. NEARLY ALL OF US HAVE HAD TO OVERCOME HANDICAPS WHICH ARE A RESULT OF OUR PARENTS OR THEIR PARENTS BEFORE THEM, BELIEVE IT OR NOT! You have inherited certain weaknesses or certain failings or certain personality traits or characteristics, some of which you don't like & which are not good that you got from your folks, believe it or not, some of it through natural genes of heredity. That means getting certain characteristics in the way you look etc. that you get from your flesh parents. Some of you may not like the way you look because your parents gave it to you. Well, actually, I don't see anything but beautiful people here so we don't have anything to worry about. But you also inherit certain personality characteristics, they call them gene traits, etc., so that you're inclined to sometimes even have the same expressions or gestures or personality characteristics, all kinds of things, like your parents.

10. SOME PEOPLE BLAME IT ON THE STARS OR THE SUN OR THE MOON OR THEIR HOROSCOPE OR THEIR ASTROLOGICAL SIGN! A lot of people blame it on God, they're not satisfied with blaming it on their parents. The Freudian doctrine blamed everything on the parents. Well, it's only one more step to blame everything on God, & that's exactly what Freud was after, & Nietzsche!—Both of them nuts! Imagine these two totally insane, lunatic, highly-educated psychologists‚ & later psychiatrists, going around trying to heal people's minds when they themselves were absolutely stark raving mad!

11. ANYBODY WHO DOESN'T KNOW JESUS, ANYBODY WHO DOESN'T KNOW THE LORD, ANYBODY WHOSE LIFE IS NOT CENTERED ON CHRIST AS ITS CENTER, AS ITS FOCAL POINT, IS AN ECCENTRIC!—In other words, they're a little bit queer & crazy! Did you get that? If your life is not Christ-centered, then you are eccentric, that means off-center! How can these eccentric idiots like Nietzsche & Freud tell anyone anything about psychology—especially normal psychology, much less abnormal psychology—when they themselves are nuts? "Physician heal thyself!"—Nuts whose writings are now touted by the whole medical & psychological world as great psychiatrists & great innovators & great discoverers of the workings of the mind & everything, & both of them blame nearly everything in your life on your parents!

12. SO NOW PEOPLE GO AROUND USING THEIR PARENTS AS AN EXCUSE FOR THE WAY THEY ARE & THINK THEY CAN JUST GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING, BECOME CRIMINALS OR ANYTHING: "Well, it's not my fault, it was my parents' fault!" And the next step, of course, … is to say, "It's not my fault! Why me? It's God's fault!" Isn't that horrible? That's a kind of predestinarianism, a sort of a fatalism, that you're not to blame, you had no choice in it, you had nothing to do with it, it's all God's & your parents' fault! Isn't that ridiculous?

13. GOD PUTS YOU HERE WITH A MIND TO MAKE A CHOICE, TO BE A FREE MORAL AGENT, WHICH MEANS TO HAVE FREEDOM OF CHOICE LIKE ADAM & EVE IN THE GARDEN. Did Adam & Eve in the Garden have to go eat of the forbidden fruit? Did anybody compel them to do it?—No! You say, "Well, didn't the Devil compel'm?" No, he didn't compel'm, he just persuaded'm. He just gave them a bill of goods, a bunch of lies that they believed instead of believing the Lord. But they had a choice, they didn't have to believe the Devil. They should have believed the Lord! But with their free will & choice they chose to believe Satan instead of God! Nobody made them, they didn't have to, & don't give me any of that stuff about any of you!: "Well, I'm just that way, that's just me, I can't help it. My dad was that way or my mother was that way & it's just born in me‚ I just can't overcome it, I've got that weakness, that personality trait‚ it's my star sign, sun sign" blah blah! Phooey! It's not so!

14. GOD PUT YOU HERE TO MAKE A CHOICE, & THE CHOICE IS ENTIRELY UP TO YOU! Nobody makes you do this or that, except maybe your parents when you were little, but even then we give you lots of choices, don't we, children? You say, "What shall I do?" And a lot of times we say, "Well‚ what would you like to do? It's up to you. We'll leave this decision up to you." I believe in helping children to make decisions early in life, because that's what life is all about! It's like my Mother used to say, "Decisions, decisions, decisions! It seems like life is nothing but decisions!"—And that's exactly right. That's what you're here for‚ to make decisions, that's exactly what life is all about. But you can make those decisions, & you don't have to make it one way or the other.

15. YOU HAVE WHAT I'VE OFTEN CALLED THE MAJESTY OF CHOICE‚ FREE WILL & CHOICE TO DO AS YOU PLEASE! You can be like that dumb heathen in that poem "Invictus" who said‚ "My head is bloody but unbowed!" What a fool, what an idiot! The picture is of somebody who'd rather stand there with God beating'm over the head with a club until they're bloody, but they're still not going to bow their head! But the fact of the matter is‚ God doesn't stand there beating you over the head with a club until you're bloody to try to get you to make the right choice, He tries to persuade you. God uses love & persuasion & wisdom & truth to try to persuade you, like your parents do, because they love you. They try to get you to make the right choice.

16. WE OFTEN TELL OUR CHILDREN‚ "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU OUGHT TO DO? You know what's right & wrong, you know what God's will is, you know what God's Word says, it's up to you! You know what's best, you know what's right, what do you think you ought to do?" And the earlier they learn to make those decisions on their own, & the right decisions, the better! Most young people of the World & the System don't get to that point to where they become their own judge & make their own decision until they're teenagers! Our children have already made'm & have already made most of the right decisions at an early age, beginning with accepting Christ when they're about two. And once they've given their life, their mind & their heart to the Lord Jesus Christ, from then on they're bound to make nearly all the right decisions, because they are guided by His Spirit. Our children learn very early to make the right decisions & are continually making decisions & the right decisions, thank the Lord! Isn't that wonderful?

17. JUST THINK WHAT A TRAUMA OF A PSYCHOLOGICAL CRISIS THEY AVOID BY LEARNING ALL OF THAT NOW INSTEAD OF WAITING TILL THEY'RE TEENAGERS & their family finally sends them away to school or they finally get pretty much independent & on their own & can thumb their noses at their folks & go their own way because they're big enough & hard enough & bad enough to say "no" to Mama & Daddy by that time. And of course a lot of families have so spoiled them by that time, they've never learned how to say "no" to their children, so they always get their way & they can do as they please. Then they've got a monster on their hands, an unleashed monster!—A human monster out of control who doesn't know what's right or wrong & doesn't know how to control himself or herself or how to do the right thing, because they've been taught, "There is no right thing, there's no right & wrong! There are no absolutes, do as you please. The right thing for you is me‚ myself & I!"—Blah blah!

HOLY SPIRIT POSSESSION!

18. THAT'S MAKING A GOD OF YOURSELF, & THAT'S WHAT A LOT OF EVEN THESE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS ACTUALLY TEACH & PREACH‚ "DISCOVER YOURSELF‚ YOUR REAL SELF!"—And what they really find out is that they've got another self!—And after enough meditation they may have two or three selves, sometimes four or five, maybe even a legion!—Because they never got Himself, God's Self to keep all the others out! They start off with a bad self to begin with & then they accumulate a few more evil spirits!

19. SCHIZOPHRENIA OCCUPIES MOST OF THE BEDS IN INSANE ASYLUMS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD TODAY, WHICH IS NOTHING MORE NOR LESS NOR SHORT OF ACTUAL DEMON-POSSESSION! Schizophrenia is a big psychological word meaning "split personality."—In other words, they're two or three or four people. They're not only themselves‚ but they've picked up some demons who've invaded them & taken possession of them, & part of the time they act this way & part of the time they act that way & sometimes they even speak in different voices, think of that!

20. WELL, WE BELIEVE IN SPIRIT POSSESSION! WE NOT ONLY BELIEVE IN DEMON-POSSESSION, BUT WE PRACTICE SPIRIT-POSSESSION, HOLY SPIRIT POSSESSION! And let me tell you right now, if you haven't got the Holy Spirit, you're apt to wind up any day with an unholy spirit‚ demon-possessed! Without the Lord to protect you, without His Holy Spirit to fill you to overflowing so there's no room for the Devil, you have nothing! You're empty, swept & garnished! Perhaps you even try to clean up your life, like these psychiatrists try to do‚ & try to clean out the rubbish of your mind & everything else, & you leave it empty. But then, in one case in the Bible the Lord said the demon went & got more demons even worse than himself & came back & inhabited the man & the last estate was worse than in the beginning! (Mat.12:43-45)