David Berg
12/89DO 2597
1. Have Thy Way, Lord! You know what's best, Thy Will be done! Give us wisdom in this discussion, Lord, that we shall all be of the same mind by Thy Spirit. Lead & guide us as to what should be discussed, Lord, & help us not to stray. Give us the strength for it, Lord‚ & thank You for how You've healed me in answer to their prayers & our prayers! Finish the work, Lord! You've begun a good work in me—complete it to the end!—Phi.1:6. TYJ!
2. Well‚ PTL! TYL! I hate to take your time, but we do need to get together once in awhile & share our hearts & be sure we're united & on the right track. I think we've been doing real well! I've been getting my paperwork done in spite of my afflictions, & I presume you've all been getting yours done too. I leave it to Mama to see to that! She's a real little pusher! She keeps me going too!
3. I often think of that cartoon that Laban made way back yonder when I was talking about how lazy I am & how I'm always thinking of some way to put off doing my work!—And Mama kept hovering around making sure I got it & sticking it in my hands & doing everything she could to keep me busy! (See ML #303A.) TTL! (Maria: But you really aren't lazy.) Well, I think all of us are a little bit lazy. We don't like to do anything we don't have to! Well, with our type of work‚ there's one thing that keeps pushing me, I know if I don't do it today, I've still got to do it tomorrow!—And then I really get behind!
4. I just finished reading a new WND, & this one is all about the new great apocalypse that's happening in Eastern Europe! (See WND 301.) As one writer said, "Let's do it justice & call it a revolution!" Just because it's been peaceful so far doesn't mean it's not a revolution! It's a real revolution‚ that's for sure, the crumbling of Communism & its hold on the East Bloc states!
5. I'm pretty much convinced now that these must be the epochal events that were predicted by the astrologers & modern-day prophets for November! Because those events of November have been absolutely stupendous! I can hardly pick a word big enough to describe them! Maybe I'll use some Hollywood language: They are stupendous, gigantic, spectacular & very earth-moving! They are tremendous events‚ a real turning point in history! TYL!—And something's gotta give, you might say!
6. I've really been thinking & praying about it, & I've already hinted about what I feel could soon happen in some of the new Letters coming out. I've been working on the script of "The Way I See It!" (ML #2596) I guess I should call it the rough draft, but it is sort of like a script because I'm trying to figure out the scenario! I titled it "The Way I See It" because all of those things are a matter of interpretation & you've really got to pray & ask the Lord to lead you & try to make sure you've got it right!
7. I've left a lot of variations & options open like I did in the "What If" series, etc., & maybe this will be a little bit "What–Ify" again! Actually, a conversation I had this morning got me thinking along this line again, as well as all of the recent news & the WND & all the rest! This is about as stupendous as any turn in history for many years, & as someone has said, it's about the greatest change in Europe since World War 2!—And for the better! TYL!
GORBACHEV & MARTIN LUTHER!
8. Gorby really got it going by starting off with Russia, & this encouraged the other states to throw off the chains of Communism. That's what he's really doing, although I think he's trying to act like he's not. He says he wants Communism, only he's trying to purify it & all of this, but I think he says that a lot for the benefit of some of the conservative Communists in order to show that he's still being loyal to Socialism & Communism & not really trying to completely overthrow it. But he's given the idea enough encouragement that the other little East Bloc states are accepting it for what it's really worth & what he's really doing!—Although he's a little afraid to say so in his own home country.
9. It reminds me a little bit of what Martin Luther's followers did.—And what some of our own people have done sometimes too. Luther preached against the Catholic Church & its policies & doctrines. He preached against its idolatry, their idols & statues. He preached like I preached against the church & churches.—Until his followers took him at his word & started the Peasants' War in which they began to destroy the church buildings themselves!—Going in & throwing down all the idols & breaking the stained glass windows & their pictures of idolatry! They took Luther's preaching to the extreme. His followers were just simple-minded peasants & figured, "Well, if it's all that bad, we might as well go tear it down & destroy it!"
10. And in a way, that's been Gorbachev's effect on the East Bloc states.—Although he's afraid to go that far himself right now in his own nation of Russia for fear he'll lose his job & lose his chance to lead & to bring that about eventually. He doesn't want to push it too fast, too far, too soon for fear there'll be a reaction. Well, there has been a reaction as far as his message is concerned, in that they have taken it literally & to the limit to which it's bound to go!
11. He's trying to kind of soft-pedal & pussyfoot along for fear of offending his hard-line enemies to the point that they'll rise up & react‚ & perhaps he has more patience & more wisdom than the street mobs. But the street mobs have taken him at his word & are deciding they don't care to wait! They don't have any reason to wait. "We want it now! Why wait? Why pussyfoot around & soft-pedal it & try to go slow to be sure nobody rises up & protests?"
12. So they're kind of like Martin Luther's followers. They took him at his word & just went out & started tearing down the churches & throwing down the idols!—Which started the Peasants' War in which Northern Germany accepted Martin Luther's leadership & that of his noble sponsors. His doctrine & message was accepted mostly by Northern Germany & the Scandinavian countries, & as a result, they virtually all became Protestant.
13. Of course, this was a great insult to the Papacy & the Pope & the Catholics, etc. Southern Germany, Bavaria & that area, was solidly Catholic & they did not accept the teachings of Martin Luther, nor did the Catholic countries to the South of Germany, such as the East Bloc countries on down to Italy, the headquarters of the Papacy.
14. I don't know whether you recall the history or not, but the Pope sent an army recruited from these Catholic countries & drove up even as far as Southern Germany to wipe out every vestige of Protestantism in those areas.—And his army did a pretty good job of it! They slaughtered about two million Protestants in the process of their sweep from Italy on up.
15. All those countries are still Catholic, including Bavaria. Bavaria is the most beautiful part of Germany with the most beautiful recreational resorts—hunting, fishing‚ mountains & the Black Forest. And it was notorious during WW2 that the American officers wanted to make sure the Allies kept that from Stalin, so they made sure that that was a part of the settlement. Well, that's the Catholic part too, so maybe the Catholics had something to do with that!
16. The Allies let East Germany go. "Who cares about the other half of the country? We want to keep the industrialised part, West Germany, where we can make money!" East Germany was mostly agricultural in the last war & has always been the poorest part of Germany. In fact, it got more prosperous under Communism. Because they were poor they accepted Communism, which supposedly offered so much to the poor—industrialisation, jobs, more money, housing, blah blah blah!
COMMUNIST CO-OPERATIVES!
17. In this effort to revamp their countries along Socialist & Communist lines, they put so much pressure & emphasis on industrialisation—which was a part of Marx's & Lenin's message—the people wanted to industrialise the farms by cooperatives.—Which haven't worked, & that's why they're starving now.
18. The cooperatives never worked! The cooperative where I built my church out in Valley Farms, Arizona didn't work—Mrs. Roosevelt's little Communist experiment—& they finally had to disband it. They found out everybody shared equally with everything except the work! The whole thing was non-profit & non-economical, so Mrs. Roosevelt finally decided the only thing to do was to sell it off to those who could buy it. They sold the homes very cheaply with very low down payments—about $200 down, $25 a month—& by the time I got there, everybody had bought up the place! Those who could afford it bought at least their homes‚ & some of the successful farmers bought quite a bit of the lands around the town.
19. It was built a little after the European style of the village in the middle & the farmlands surrounding, sort of like the Lord's plan for the Millennial Villages. (See ML #1573.) And that's a good plan, because instead of isolating the farmers & everybody so far away from each other, it brought the people together for better social life & the farmers would drive out to their lands.
20. Mrs. Roosevelt had hoped that her little experiment would be the salvation of the riffraff & that it would make them good!—Just like the Communists preach that Socialism will make you good & pretty soon you won't have any crime & you won't have to have any laws in the heavenly Communism that's to come!
21. Even the Communists themselves admit they don't really have pure Communism. They have Socialism & they're on their way to the utopia of Communism. "When everybody finally finds out how wonderful it is & how marvellous it is & how it makes everybody righteous & good & kind to your neighbours & willing to share with others because you're sharing like this, eventually we'll have Heaven on Earth & nobody will be bad! It will solve all the crime problem & delinquency problems & we'll need no more jails & no more laws! The sharing of Communism & the communal idea will solve the World's problems!"
22. Well, that sounds great & in a way that's what we'll have in the Millennium‚ but you cannot have that sort of Heaven on Earth unless you change the hearts of men! Without a spiritual rebirth, men will still be wicked & selfish & will never truly love their neighbours or be willing to share!
23. As Marx & Lenin preached, with Communism or Socialism you have to have the dictatorship of the proletariat. They're not going to accept it willingly, so you're going to have to enforce it & just force'm to do it! So this meant cruel tyrannies in which they forced the people into Communism.
24. One reason the Communist states have failed so miserably‚ & especially failed to feed their people, is the same reason that it was failing in China. It wasn't until they de-cooperatised the farmers of China & set them free & gave them incentive for private gain that China began to eat well again! Because natural Man will only really work hard for himself, to gain & make money‚ etc. So they found out all throughout Communism everywhere in the World the cooperatives did not work & that the people just wouldn't work! Everybody got the same anyhow, so some people would just be lazy & wouldn't produce.—Therefore their production of foods went down disastrously!
25. Russia used to be called "the bread basket of Europe" because they produced so much wheat & so much food! During World War 1, however, Russia lost millions of men, nearly all farmers who had been taken off the farms to fight the war. So where did the wheat go? Where did the bread go? By the end of World War 1 the people were starving! They blamed it, of course, on their government & on the Czar, & in a way it was their fault because they got themselves into that war.—And really they got themselves into the wrong side of that war because they fought along with the Allies against Germany.
26. Dear Rasputin advised them to go in with Germany‚ & that's part of the reason they killed him! They thought he'd been hobnobbing with German emissaries & plotting to overthrow the government‚ so his enemies used that as their excuse to kill him.—Done by one of the Royal Family, of course‚ as you know the story. (See "Rasputin," ML #1118.)
YOU MUST KNOW THE PAST TO INTERPRET THE FUTURE!
27. Well, here I am again giving you the background, because I don't know whether you remember this much history or not! (Fam: This is where we learn all our history!) Well, history was my favourite subject in school! I made 100s, straight A's on the tests & everything, because I really loved it! And thank God I did, because it gave me very good background even of ancient history for Bible study.
28. As far as the Bible's concerned, if you don't understand the past, you can hardly interpret the Future! If you don't know the past, you can read the Bible & not know whether a prophecy has ever been fulfilled or not!—Except some that you can certainly tell have never yet been fulfilled, like those in Daniel & Revelation about the Endtime.
29. There are a lot of specific prophecies about certain countries, etc., in the Bible amongst the Prophets, & if you don't know your ancient history pretty well, you wonder, "Did that ever happen?" But if you know that they've already happened, then you can weed them out as having been fulfilled & know that the ones you're left with have to be for the Future!
30. That's what we have done & that's what you have profited from & benefited from!—The years & years of Bible Study that I went through—& my Father & my Mother & my Grandfather & many other great teachers before me! Don't give me all the credit, because I studied under all of them too! Of course, one said one thing & one said another!
31. It wasn't until I got my own church that I said, "Lord‚ I'm responsible for this flock of sheep & I don't want to teach them lies! I've learned all these contradicting & conflicting interpretations, but I want to know & I want You to show me!" Prior to then I'd read this man's book & that man's book, this interpretation & that interpretation, & there was so much confusion! A lot of it was right, a lot of it was good, but there was a great difference of opinion.—Just for one example, between the pre-Trib or post-Trib Rapturists! So I desperately prayed & began to study the Book of Revelation again, & I finally saw what it really meant! PTL!
32. So the background I've been giving you has a lot to do with what we're teaching you today, as far as these final events. And as they come closer, we can begin to see what has to happen & what is not necessarily the right interpretation. Actually‚ the basic literal interpretations I've given you in both Daniel & Revelation are virtually standard. How could it really be anything else? That's what it says! Daniel was a pretty easy book as far as Bible Prophecy teachers were concerned‚ because it was obvious that most of it had already been fulfilled—Daniel 2 & the Image & a lot of past history. So that's pretty easy! But when it got into the latter chapters, then there was a little problem.
TRIBULATION & PERSECUTION!
33. Of course when Scofield & these guys came along with their pre-Trib Rapture, oh, this was something to tickle the ears‚ something the people really wanted to hear! Up until that time, nobody had ever even thought of a pre-Trib Rapture! The Catholic Bible teaches that the Tribulation & the Antichrist will come first, & all the Protestant denominations that came out of the Catholic Church continued with that interpretation.—In fact, many of them thought that different Popes were the Antichrist! They'd had so much tribulation & persecution under them already, the Protestants stuck to the basic Catholic interpretation of the Antichrist & Tribulation coming first, & they even tried to work out a system by which they figured out that the Papacy in general was the Antichrist, & their persecution of Protestants was the Tribulation!
34. Of course, a lot of countries & a lot of churches & a lot of people have already been getting a lot of tribulation! You couldn't imagine any greater tribulation than the Early Church went through with the ten Roman persecutions that just wiped out Christians!—Not to mention the first Jewish persecutions in which they wiped out a lot of Christians. How can you have any greater persecution than to get killed for your faith?—Which is what happened to the Armenian Christians. A million of them were wiped out by the Turks because they wouldn't deny their Christian faith when the Turks took over Armenia.
35. The Russians did almost the same thing to Armenia. Armenia was a free country before that war in which the Russians took it over, & again they had another pogrom or organised massacre, similar to the one of the Turks. They either had to deny their faith & become Communists or they couldn't buy or sell or eat or get a job or anything! It's already happened to a lot of people, so don't be too worried about it! (Maria: A lot of countries in the World have gone through it. They wiped out almost all the Christians in Japan!)
36. So anyway, from Catholics to Protestants, all of the basic major denominations believed in a Post-Trib Rapture! And of course the Bible itself teaches it! Paul believed in it, & Jesus knew it, & that's what it teaches all the way through!—Until the Cooneyites came along (we ought to call'm the Kookyites!) in the late 1700s in England with the false doctrine of the pre-Trib Rapture!
37. It was the beginning, really, of some of the first real Pentecostal outpourings. The Kentucky Revival came along in the 1800s, & then the Azusa Street Mission about 1908. After the Pentecostal Revival in the early 1900s‚ there was a huge Pentecostal Revival in India. Some of the largest Pentecostal churches to this day are in India, believe it or not, & are still very strong.
CHURCHES TURNED AGAINST US!
38. Of course, our enemies have turned most of the churches against us!—And I presume some of our own doctrines & practices have turned churches against us, & our very attack on the churches & our condemnations of their sins & lethargy have turned them against us, if nothing else! We were the first who challenged them & decried them & protested against them & their non–Christian practices, their failure to reach the World with the Gospel & the failure of the average Christian to witness & win souls & go out & preach the Gospel! It wasn't hard to hit the church right where it hurt, because when we exposed them‚ they knew that they were guilty, & it's the hit dog that howls!—So they began howling!
39. I'll never forget some of the earliest churches that began to cry against us. There was a pastor of a big powerful Baptist church in San Diego that preached against us from his pulpit, & there began to be pastors around us in Los Angeles & different places who began to protest against us & preach from the pulpits against us.
40. They were afraid of us & what we were preaching!—And that's what inspired us to go on those church visitations. We wanted to go & sit down peacefully & let them see that we were not radicals ready to cut their throats‚ we were not going to tear down their church buildings like they did in the Peasants' War & the 30 Years' War which followed the Reformation in Germany!
41. Well, anyhow, our enemies, & of course the Devil, have turned the churches against us. They're especially horrified at our sexiness & our sexual doctrines, & play that up the biggest of all, of course‚ as their main reason for thinking we're actually dangerous & that we're abusing our children & all that sort of thing! The Devil's stirring them up to try to find legal cause against us. Just the fact that we're so sexy offended them anyhow, & therefore they concluded we couldn't help but be of the Devil because we're for sex!
42. Of course, our anti-church preaching is what got them originally stirred up against us in the beginning. They didn't even know about our sexiness until later. But that convinced them that of course we could not be of God—we must be of the Devil to be so sexy! Because they have been so anti-sex-indoctrinated for centuries!—Including the Catholic Church with all its celibacy! Look what it's done to the poor priests! They've turned to Sodomy because they can't have normal sex & they can't marry.—It's horrible! "Doctrines of devils," the Bible calls it, forbidding to eat certain meats & forbidding to marry‚ etc.—1Tim.4:1-3. Well, we certainly did stir up a hornet's nest!
43. But I believe the Lord not only let that happen to liberate us and to get us on the right track—out of the churchy rut and out of the churchy anti-sex rut—not only that‚ for our own benefit, although it's caused us a lot of persecution—but to make sure we did not slip back & slide back into the churches!
CATHOLICS SWALLOWED THE COMMUNIST LINE!
44. The strange thing about Communism—do you know where it flourished the most in its earliest days? What was the religion of all those countries that went Communist? It was the most Catholic countries, both Eastern & Western Catholic, Roman Catholic & Orthodox Catholic, who swallowed the Communist line—hook‚ line & sinker!
45. The churches in those countries had already turned the people against them because they had become so corrupt & were such a poor sample of Christianity. The people were already looking for something else, because the churches were so sickeningly formal & weak & corrupt & oppressive of the people!
46. Communism offered them liberty from churchianity, & best of all, freedom from God! "We don't have to serve under His authoritarian & merciless cruel rule of the churches, we can be free now!"—Not only from the churches & churchianity & all that, but from God Himself! Think of it!
47. There were a lot of people who looked at the churches & figured, "If that's Christianity, & if that's God, I don't want any part of it!" They were ripe & ready to dump the churches & dump God for something else! And so it was that all those Catholic countries fell first to Communism, think of that!—Especially the most backward countries like Russia & Eastern Europe, etc.
48. Even Italy almost went Communist! I think if the church hadn't been right there itself & had so much power, they probably would have! Italy had the biggest Communist party in Europe for a long time. After World War 2 they nearly went straight Communist, & would have if it hadn't been for the hundreds of millions of Dollars that the U.S. poured into Italy to save its Christian Democratic government!—Which usually means Catholic Church. The Christian Democrats are usually the Catholics‚ & the Social Democratic parties throughout the World are usually [AC]-led & controlled.
COMMUNISM REJECTED BY ENGLAND!
49. You're getting the history of how Communism came to be! Both Marx & Lenin did their best to preach Communism to the Protestant countries, but they wouldn't swallow it!—Besides‚ they weren't in as bad shape as Russia & Eastern Europe.
50. After being thrown out of Germany‚ Marx fled to more tolerant England. When we first went to England we even lived in a house in the very same section where he used to live! And we walked up the street, & of all things, walked right into the cemetery where he was buried & where his tombstone still is in that part of London. He lived there in squalor & poverty & virtual stink with his wife & his children. They say his house was filthy & practically stunk because he didn't have time to work or anything, but spent all his time writing "Das Kapital."—Which is a huge long tome! I refused to read it when I was considering Communism, but I did read a little condensation of it by a modern Communist & it was a lot easier to understand.
51. When Marx & Engels proclaimed their "Communist Manifesto" or "Worker's Manifesto," "Workers of the World Unite!", it practically fell flat on deaf ears in Christian England! The workers didn't want to unite!—Especially not under the Communists! Later on there were a lot of Communists there, but it took years to persuade the English workers to become Communist.
52. You can imagine how their message of anti-God atheism, which they stressed in the earliest days, sounded in England!—"Unite! Overthrow your oppressors! Overthrow the tyrants, the bosses, the owners, etc.! It's yours‚ grab it!" You can imagine how that sounded not only to the landlords & the politicians, but even to the workers who were mostly Christian. So England in the early days completely rejected Marx, Engels, Lenin, the bunch of them, & finally even threw'm out on occasion. I guess Marx kind of kept undercover like we do‚ because he was writing his books that were going to win the World to Communism.
53. So Communism fell on almost deaf ears throughout Christian Europe, & of course America. The only ones really ripe & ready to receive it were the Catholic countries, especially the poor countries where the church was the worst, along with the absolutely pagan & heathen countries of the East & Africa.
72 YEARS OF COMMUNISM PROVED IT DIDN'T WORK!
54. The poor backward countries of Eastern Europe which were all so-called Christians—Orthodox & Roman Catholic Christians—were ripe & ready to receive Communism! They are the ones who were the most backward, ignorant & uneducated, & where the church was therefore the most tyrannical, the most corrupt, the most oppressive, & the most non-Christian, really, in practice.
55. But originally, remember, they were all Catholics, thousands of them, yea‚ millions of them!—And the Communist religion was foisted on them by the Red Revolution, which consisted of only a few thousand people. First of all they ousted the Czar, then a few months later they surrounded the new Democratic Parliament of Kerensky & had'm practically up against a wall & forced them to resign, to vacate Parliament. They overturned the only Democratic government Russia's ever had & massacred the Czar & his whole family.
56. So Communism was forced on virtually all those countries! But there were enough people in each country—poor, hungry, landless & oppressed—who were willing to help them take it over. But remember, most of the people had originally been Christians—Catholics & Orthodox—& millions of them, although they were forced to accept the Communist state, did not really believe in Communism. Millions of them were murdered by Lenin & Stalin & all the rest of them for refusing to accept Communism. Originally they were Christians—Catholics & Orthodox—but with a very poor example of a church. So a lot of them were persuaded to accept Communism.
57. But now, thank God for the 72 years of Communism which proved that it didn't work & it didn't deliver & they're worse off now than they were before! The people are finally waking up to the fact that Communism did not deliver all it had promised & they're still very bad off.—In fact, many are even worse off‚ they're again hungry! The last time they were so hungry, which helped the Red Revolution to succeed, was after World War 1 when all the farmers had had to go to war & millions of them were killed! They even ran out of ammunition at the front, they couldn't even shoot their guns. The Germans just overran them, slaughtered them & imprisoned them!
58. So they were ripe & ready for somebody to save'm, & it looked like Lenin was their saviour! Do you know what he preached?—Just what the people were hungry to hear!—"Bread & Land"! He said, "I'm going to feed you & everybody's going to have land!" Of course‚ that part never came true‚ & in fact a lot of them starved to death anyhow. Thousands & thousands of Russians starved to death in those days of famine. So he didn't feed'm, neither did he give them the land!—But he preached it & they accepted it because that's what they wanted to hear!
59. In fact, he slaughtered the farmers, the very ones who knew how to feed them!—The Kulaks who owned great estates, actually ranches, or in the U.S. South they would have called them plantations. It takes a pretty smart man to be a farmer, especially to run a big farm, where in those old days you didn't have machinery & you had to have a lot of workers!
60. Coming out of medieval days‚ there were the lords & the nobles who lived on big fiefs, & the people who worked under them were virtual slaves, called serfs. Well‚ Russia was still more or less in medieval condition & there were these big rich farmers, the Kulaks, who lived on these gigantic farms & who had to have a lot of people working under them to work these farms who were virtually serfs, almost slaves.
61. Well‚ the Communists came running around to every one, & they slaughtered, executed & massacred the Kulak & his family & all the top foremen & supervisors, the guys who knew how to run it. And they said to the workers, all the serfs, "Here, it's yours now, you take it! You can have it! Live in this house & run it!"—But they couldn't! They just couldn't. They didn't know how!
62. This also happened in the Philippines recently, on one of the islands there. The socialistic farm heads‚ the guys who owned the land, offered to divide it up & give it to all their workers to share. But a lot of the workers refused it & said, "We don't know how to do it! All we've ever done is what you've told us to do. We don't know how to make these types of decisions!" Even those who accepted the land went broke, they couldn't make it pay, they couldn't even make it support themselves.
63. Socialism has been tried a lot of places. But when you turn over land & business & industry & government to the ignorant & the uneducated & those who were just like serfs or slaves on the land before & all they knew was how to do what the bosses told them to do, they've crashed!
64. Nearly every single former colonial government of Africa has collapsed—crashed! They say the big factories & farms are overgrown with weeds! The liberated natives figured, "This means I don't have to work any more!"—So they just went to pot. They didn't know how to operate the factories or the machines, about the only thing that kept going was the railroads‚ & it usually took some experts from South Africa to keep those going.
65. So this is the condition that Eastern Europe is in now, the people didn't really know how to keep things going! The government took away personal farms, & after the people couldn't run the farms that the Kulaks had, the Communists tried to solve it by putting them in big collectives. "We'll have a collective & we'll have an overseer & we'll furnish you with machinery" & all of this. So they just went from one dictator to another! They went from one big boss, the Kulak, to the collective overseer, & they were back as serfs again!—Even worse off in many ways under cruel oppression‚ tyranny & whatnot!—Awful!
66. So it took 70 years to really convince most of them that Communism wasn't it & didn't have it, & Communism is crumbling! 70 years, well, that's a couple of generations. They kept saying, "It's in the future, we're going to have a Communist utopia in the future!" But by the time the second generation came along they figured, "Listen, you've been telling us this for 72 years & it's still not here!—In fact, we're worse off than ever! We're fed up with you!—Especially your tyranny & your dictatorship & your secret police & your pogroms, your massacres of Christians!"
67. It's estimated that Stalin during his administration massacred about four million Christians, as well as tens of millions of peasants & dissidents, & instituted the big Gulag chain of prison camps in which these slave workers were sent out to work for nothing, with hardly any food‚ shelter or clothes!—The horrors of which the famous writer Solzhenitsyn revealed in his book, The Gulag Archipelago. He wrote about it & that became a revelation even to Russians‚ many of whom didn't even know those existed unless they landed in one!
68. So you see, during these 72 years, finally the Communists could not hide their failures & their shames & their horrible mistakes, until the people were feeling it themselves, having to line up in long bread lines. The cooperatives were not producing enough food & the factories were not producing enough goods because of the lazy non-productive workers & mismanagement & all the rest.
69. See, God has to let people learn the hard way! If they won't accept His Word, follow Him & learn the right way, then they have to learn the hard way, & they have learned the hard way!—72 years of it! And now they're fed up with it & are dumping it & saying, "You guys are crazy! This is not the way to do it, it's failed! We're hungry, we don't have a decent level of living, & therefore we're fed up! We go over & look at the West & they've got everything, so there must be something wrong with Communism! You've been telling us lies about the wicked West, but at least they've got it a lot better off than we have! They've got a lot better style of living & much more food & everything‚ so we're fed up with you Commies!"
70. The Lord allowed it to exist long enough to show that it was a failure, a false doctrine full of lies‚ & that they had deceived the people, tyrannised them & oppressed them & arrested them & everything else to keep them in subjection. They had just swapped their faith, Christianity‚ & an old form of tyranny—in which even the Czars & their government were more merciful—for something that was even worse! The Lord had to let it fail & expose it to show them that it was not where it's at, & that's what they're finding out right now!
WHAT'S NEXT?
71. Now this is what I've been working up to in all this history, & I've hinted at this already, especially in "The Way I See It" where I have outlined a scenario that I think is possibly going to happen! We've survived November, & the huge grand great events foretold by the stars to happen in November were not bad, they were good! Remember, nearly all of these events happened in November, & of course it's still carrying on in December. So that was good!
72. But I can begin to see now what is really happening! In "The Way I See It" you'll read the details of a discussion between Mama & I. We took our Bibles & we went over these passages in Daniel & in Revelation again—especially Daniel where it makes it very explicit just how the Antichrist arises. It's not as explicit in Revelation. The major Endtime events are more explicit there, but how the Antichrist arises & takes over is told very explicitly in Daniel 11.
73. I'll ask you: What's going to happen next? The Lord can show it to you right now! We know what's going to happen eventually‚ right? We know that the Antichrist is going to arise & somehow be revealed & is going to somehow take over. Right now Communism is crumbling from the very heart, at least in Eastern Europe. And in all these countries the people have virtually declared their independence & they're overthrowing their Communist governments & denying Communism & refusing to let them run them any more!
74. Rebellion is sweeping the Communist Empire of Eastern Europe!—Although Gorbachev himself has been trying to walk softly & is still claiming to be a Communist & preserving Socialism & all of that. I think he figures if he goes too far like these other countries, there will be a reaction & the Hard Right is going to rise up against him to stop it!
75. Most of what is being bred in the East Bloc countries is sponsored by the churches!—Common sense, decency, democracy, freedom & even faith! The churches are the centers where they meet! The same in Poland. Where did the Freedom Movement in Poland arise from?—Out of the church! It was the churches where they had their meetings, it was the churches where they fomented the revolution! It was the churches where they proclaimed Christianity was better than Communism, & they won in Poland.
76. Now, in Russia, Gorbachev came in. He didn't blast the churches, in fact he's given them a lot of freedom. Of course, there wasn't too much church left in Russia, & his message was more along the lines of, "Let's have a more liberal government & let's preach Glasnost, more openness & freedom, & let's have a restructuring."
77. We expected that it would be the great Crash that would bring out the Antichrist. Well, I'm sure that will help. The Antichrist is here, somewhere, undoubtedly engineering a lot of things from behind the scenes. I'm sure the Lord is allowing the Crash of Communism to happen to show the people that that's not where it's at. So what are they turning back to?—The churches! There's a real revival!
78. There have been some real religious revivals going on even in Russia off & on for years, & they say that there are probably more Christians there now than ever!—In spite of persecution, in spite of Communism. And as is obvious, these East Bloc countries were even more churchy & had even more Christians loyal to their churches than Russia did. So they're turning back to the churches even more, & it's the churches where this present revolution was born & bred & took hold‚ & it's the churches that have been backing it. And the church is now throwing off the fetters & finding freedom from these Communist governments‚ even in Russia!
TOO FAR, TOO FAST!
79. Although Gorbachev started the wave rolling, he's sort of dragging his feet now because he's afraid of what might happen next. And I think what he's afraid might happen next is the very thing that I think might happen next!—Maybe not the Crash, but maybe the Crash will be part of it to help bring it on. But those countries have already crashed! They're already in a completely bankrupt state! They're even hungry, suffering famine, lack of goods, etc.
80. If Gorbachev can't make it & he can't bring the common people satisfaction soon, what do you think will happen? These East Bloc countries are absolutely ditching Communism!—More than Gorbachev is! He started the wave rolling, but they're putting it into effect like the peasants of the Peasants' War in Martin Luther's day!
81. What do you think even the West Europeans are worrying about? They're afraid some of these countries are going a little too far, too fast! Gorbachev himself is worrying about it now. It's gotten to the point that he can't even control the situation, but he wants to stick to his word that he's not going to send in the tanks & armies. They've already got tanks & armies of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers in those countries, but they're not doing a thing about it, thank God! But he's afraid‚ & even Western Europe is worried about how fast this is going!
82. Even the West is afraid it's going too fast & afraid it will turn into chaos & anarchy‚ because they destroyed their governments without really replacing them with anything! They haven't developed any really strong leadership amongst the "reformers," as they call them. They don't really have any outstanding men who are big enough & strong enough to lead some of them!—The Communists crushed them all & got rid of them all! Anybody who had a word of dissent or was smart enough to speak against them, they got rid of! So they wiped out all the leadership of dissent. There's hardly anybody left!
83. Who have they got in Czechoslovakia?—He's a writer! How does he know how to run a government? They've tossed out all the people who know how to run a government, so what are they going to do now? They're really in a dangerous position, as some writers are now coming out & saying, & if you read the latest WND you'll know what I'm talking about! (See WND 301.)—And if you'll read that latest Letter, "The Way I See It!"
84. Now think & pray! Lord, help them. You show them by Thy Spirit! What is the most likely thing to happen next? Those countries don't have to crash, they've already crashed! South America has crashed, even Europe & the U.S. have already crashed, they just don't know it! What is most likely to occur next with all these Communist countries crashing?
85. They've already crashed economically! East Germany was held up as an example of a good prosperous economic state, better off than any others of those countries that are crashing! It was even better off economically than Russia! People had more in East Germany than they had in all the rest of those East Bloc countries, but it crashed too! It still wasn't near as well off as West Germany.
WHO WILL SAVE THEM?
86. Now think! Pray! Ask the Lord to show you! What is most apt to happen next? With those countries & even Russia in such a condition, they cannot save themselves. They're trying to save themselves politically, & they're having pretty good success at that, but they're absolutely crashed economically. The only one that was in a fairly good position was East Germany. Who or what is going to save them from their horrible economic crash‚ as well as hunger‚ very few good products, etc.?
87. The West is not really offering to save them. They're offering little dribbles of help here & there‚ but not really coming to the fore & thanking God for all of this & heaping gifts & help & aid on them. The East Bloc countries look to the West & are begging the West, "Save us! We're doing what you wanted us to do, we're dumping Communism, we're accepting democracy! Save us! Help us!" What is the West doing? Oh, they give a little dribble here‚ a little something there, a few crumbs from the master's table of the rich to these poor Communist countries, but not enough to save them.
88. And they have no real governments yet to save them!—Even Gorbachev, as wise as he is, & a Christian. He has very wisely come in‚ as wise as a serpent & harmless as a dove, but his Christian background & rearing have now been pretty well exposed. I put a lot of it in the WND & I told you about it‚ & the Lord told us! I couldn't have believed it if the Lord hadn't said outright, "He is My son!" Well, God doesn't accept any sons who aren't Christians! So Gorbachev started the ball rolling, the Lord used him to help all these countries to throw off the bonds of Communism, but they're not quite free yet.
89. The newly liberated countries & their people are so exultant & happy to be so liberated & to have all this freedom, they're almost drunk on it!—But they don't see the future, they don't see what can happen now!
90. What do you think is most apt to happen next?—Do you think the West is going to give them so much economic help that it's going to revive them economically so that people will be happy & willing to accept the changes & the revolution & their new democratic ways? (Fam: No.) Then who is going to save them? (Peter: Probably the Antichrist.)—Exactly!
91. In Daniel you'll find that the Antichrist first confirms this Covenant‚ & it turns out that the Covenant is not necessarily a peace treaty, it's some kind of a religious Covenant, the "Holy Covenant."—Dan.11:28‚30. He arises & he apparently promises not to oppose religion. Now that could be a real winner with these East Bloc people! That was the thing they disliked the most about Communism. So what if he arises making peace with the religions?—Then he goes on about his process of creeping in stealthily & deceitfully & every other way, all the things you've read about in Daniel. And finally he makes war with the most rebellious who will not submit to him, the King of the South.—And of course if he attacks Israel, that will include the ships of Chittim & all the rest! He has to actually go to war with them to suppress them & to conquer his enemies there.
92. What do you think is the next thing that's most apt to happen if these revolutions such as Gorbachev's Glasnost & Perestroika fail also to give them the food they need & also the higher economic level that he has promised that it would eventually bring? What if he can't deliver?—And it looks like he can't! Some experts are outright saying he can't, that it's impossible!
93. These countries have been ruined economically by Communism! Their people have been ruined by Communism. So now they're lost, they cannot save themselves! The West is too selfish to save them & probably couldn't save them anyhow. Some writers are saying they're too far gone already. One made the statement that, "Even if we could empty all the treasuries of all the rich Western countries, these East Bloc countries are so bankrupt & so economically crashed, it still wouldn't save them!" The Communists have bled them dry for so many years & taught them wrongly & ruined the people as well as the economy, so that now they are lost! It's impossible to save them!
94. They're trying to save themselves right now, but what about their economies? There is a great exultation & a lot of fun yelling up & down the streets right now & actually forming some new governments, but how are they going to survive without proper leaders & good governments to lead them, & an economy that will feed them?
95. Right now all these changes are feeding them spiritually & politically, but what if it can't feed them physically or bring them the strong leadership that these new governments need to survive? What if? What's the only thing that could possibly happen then?—If they're absolutely doomed without leadership, doomed without an economy that will feed them, doomed even along with the West with its crumbling economy! Who's to save'm?
96. This already prepares a scene in which East has collapsed & West is about to collapse—who can save'm? Have you got the answer? You already said it! It is the ideal situation for the Antichrist to arise! The West doesn't know it's collapsed yet, but it will collapse in the Crash. Eastern Europe has already collapsed. And although they're trying to break loose, they're now too weak & too lost & too broke to make it. They'll never make it. Even if the West would give them all the help they want, they can't make it! So who's going to make it? Who's going to rise now & offer them a solution?—First of all‚ as a reaction against Gorbachev. "Well, he had nice pleasant words & he wrote a nice book & he has given us hope, but he hasn't delivered our physical needs."
97. What if somebody as clever as the Devil & as strong as Satan & with his power would now arise & say, "Gorbachev didn't have it, he couldn't deliver, & we're going to lose all these countries if we don't stop this right now! It's going too far! We're even going to lose our own country, Russia, if we don't stop this madman now! Look what he's doing to our Russian Empire! Look! Are we going to let him go on with this? Are we going to lose our own country & our government & all of these countries too? We've got to put a stop to this! They can't save themselves anyhow, they haven't got good enough governments to govern them, they don't have the economy to feed'm, I will do it! I've got what Gorby hasn't got!"
98. I believe the Lord has let this happen to show that Communism was a failure, but it's also going to show that Capitalism is a failure too!—Because the Western half of the World couldn't save the Eastern half! As rich as it is, it's going to fail too. Communism is going to fail on the one hand & Capitalism on the other, & it all is coming into one big Crash!
99. To whom shall we go? He comes & rises & says, "Come unto me!"—Like Jesus did. The Antichrist is the false messiah, so he'll use a lot of the same tactics. "I'll give you a stable government! I'll create peace, no war in Europe, no war throughout the World! Give me your help & give me your fealty & loyalty (& eventually give me your worship), & I'll save you!"
100. So perhaps the economic Crash of the West does not even have to come first! There's another crash that's going on & already in process which needs salvation, which needs somebody to stop it & revive it! Communism has been dealt a deadly blow, nigh unto death!—A fatal wound which should have killed it! But then the Antichrist arises to resurrect it‚ like from the dead!—Rev.13:3,12,14.
101. So that's what I'll leave you with tonight! I guess I have to have a live audience to inspire me. I do better when I have a live audience than just trying to dictate something. It's because of the unity of our spirits! We have gotten together‚ we're praying, we're in the Spirit, so the Lord gives us something! In a sense He'd already given me this, but I'm passing it on to you to show you where we're probably at.
102. I wound up that last Letter, "The Way I See It," saying that it might take two or three years before the Antichrist gets powerful enough to even capture his own country, & then restore his kind of government in these other countries.—And maybe to get powerful enough that the churches persuade him to make this religious Covenant not to attack the church or religion of any kind, & therefore they let him go his merry way as long as he lets their religious culture remain intact.
103. The 11th Chapter of Daniel says that he even goes so far as to make a war with his enemies, those that don't yield, those that rise up & oppose him.—Which obviously looks like Israel, the King of the South, & through Israel, the U.S.—Not necessarily Europe though, because Europe's getting itself together & they're going to join him‚ as the Bible plainly says.—Rev.17:12,13.
104. So, that's the way I see it! I'm convinced now that the West is still going to crash, & it still might come before he arises. But I think Communism has crashed enough already that the AC could arise now any minute, ditch Gorbachev & say, "See, it hasn't worked!—But follow me & I will give you strong government & stable economy! I will save you!"
105. Right now they're not over the euphoria of their success‚ & although they're throwing out their old governments‚ they're not getting in their new ones very well, & they could still fail politically & turn into anarchy & actual civil war & things like that.
106. But this would be the ideal time for him to arise, as they crash & see they can't save themselves. Maybe the West is going to crash economically right on top of them & find they can't save themselves either! But obviously from the 11th Chapter of Daniel, the West is still in good enough shape to oppose him & fight with him, but he crushes them & he wins! Read it for yourselves! And then when he thinks there's no one to oppose him‚ he goes back & decides, "Now it's time to break the Covenant & crush the religionists with whom I have had a peace treaty, & really take over!" And I think that is the time when he'll be most revealed.
107. We may sense who he is! I don't see how we could possibly miss it, knowing all that we do. But the whole World doesn't accept that & they don't know the Word. As I've often said‚ when he comes to the point where he can make a Covenant with the religions, I don't see how that could be a secret. Well, that's partly in "The Way I See It" & a little bit more!
CLOSING PRAYER!
108. Thank You, Lord, for how You reveal the Future to us gradually. You don't tell us anything in advance until we need to know it. But we believe we've sought Thee on this & that's why You're beginning to show us what's most likely going to happen, so that we can prepare accordingly. So bless these & their minds & hearts & spirits, that they will seek Thy face & be convinced according to Thee & Thy Word, persuaded in their own minds that this is probably the course of events that are going to come.
109. These are fearsome & awesome days‚ Lord, awful days in which these things are finally beginning to come to pass. You said‚ "This generation shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled!"—Mat.24:34. And here we are, we're this generation, Lord‚ so we expect to see Thy Coming one of these days soon to save us out of it all! But in the meantime, the World has got to suffer for its sins.
110. Though we may be persecuted, as we already are, & have to flee & whatnot, Lord, we know You're going to be with us, taking care of us as much as You can, & if the situation becomes impossible, You're going to just plain remove us! TYL! So Thy Will be done, have Thy way!—In Jesus' name‚ amen!
WHAT'S NEW?
111. If you'd sum up what I just said to you, what would you say was the most new or shocking revelation from what we've been thinking all along? What's new? (Fam: The time span is elongated.) (Peter: And the verses about the "deadly wound." We'd basically looked at it before as the man being wounded unto death, but it could be what's going on with these Communist governments.) (Maria: Maybe it's both.) It looks like the death of Communism, but what if a man arises who can save it & bring it back to life again! (Fam: Also what you said about the religious Covenant is new, as in the past we've confined it to Israel, & not extended it to possibly having to do with the East Bloc as well.)
112. And according to the order of events, how does this bring new light on what's more apt to happen first? (Peter: That the economic Crash might not happen first.) It's not a Western Crash, but it's what's happening right now to Communism! They're having their Crash right now, which could be crisis enough for somebody to arise now & offer to save them! If it gets bad enough, they might even be willing to take Communism back, for that matter! (Fam: It's a Communist World crash!) It is, it's dying.
113. The Bible doesn't say that that wound actually did kill him, it doesn't say that he definitely died. What it's really saying is that it's a fatal wound, he should have died from it, like the wound Communism is getting right now, but he doesn't. It's like a resurrection‚ but only the Lord can give a resurrection. The Devil can't raise anybody from the dead. (Peter: When you add all that up, that's quite a lot of new wine!)
114. And what if it takes the AC till 1992 or 1993 to become powerful enough to make the Covenant? Then what have you got that we know is exact & mathematical in the Scripture?—From then on, how many years? (Peter: Seven!) So it could be 9 or 10 more years, till the year 2000! Put that in your pipe & smoke it!
115. Thank you for your patience with me.—But that was pretty brief compared to what I'm usually like! That was a pretty explosive subject, I think, considering the things the Lord is showing us! So GBY! ILY!
Quiz Questions: ML#2597