David Berg
—MOOctober 3, 1974NO.315A—DFO
MWWFL NO.19
Dear Family: Greetings in Jesus' Precious Name. Thank you again for all your good letters‚ reports, etc.
1. HOUSING FOR THE INTERNATIONAL OFFICE AND PUBLICATIONS DEPARTMENT SEEMS TO BE OUR GREATEST EMERGENCY AT THE MOMENT, but our operators here have tried to call London at least a dozen times from the very day after we got your first letter about the prospects of signing a lease on an office building there. In fact, we called nearly every night for the first several days without results, until our neighbouring hotel refused to take any more of these courtesy calls for us. A few times the trunk lines were too busy, but most of the time there was no answer and the operators refused to put through any calls to a recorder‚ and the last times the recorder didn't even answer!
2. WE HAVE BEEN UNABLE TO GET THROUGH TO YOU AT ALL BY TELEPHONE, which is maybe a good thing to teach us all a lesson that telephones are not the primary answer to our communications problems!—In fact, from all I hear and read of telephone calls, they are becoming much more of a problem than a help, and I have more than once threatened to remove them all if they were not used according to the rules! If we haven't got anybody there tough enough to enforce these phone rules, we'll get somebody who can, if I have to shake up the whole administration and remove some from the top and put them on the bottom!
3. THE BREAKING OF THESE TELEPHONE RULES WHICH I MYSELF WROTE DOWN IN DETAIL IS DELIBERATE WILFUL, FLAGRANT AND DEFIANT DISOBEDIENCE, and either you're going to start obeying them and we're going to find somebody who can enforce them, including the top administrators, or we're going to rip them all out and make everybody write letters to us and we to them‚ even including business contacts and the authorities!
4. WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR OF ANOTHER LONG DISTANCE PHONE CALL WHICH IS NOT AN ABSOLUTE LIFE AND DEATH EMERGENCY, and certainly no more of these Royal Family reports and personal family arguments carried on by telephone! You're going to have to learn a little patience and have a little more faith that God will work things out until you're able to write a letter and/or get an answer by letter! I'm beginning to think that our telephones are becoming more of a curse than a blessing, like automobiles, churches, etc.!—And if we don't stop misusing them, we're going to get rid of all of them!
5. WE THEREFORE FORBID ONCE AGAIN ANY MEMBER OF THE ROYAL FAMILY OR OTHER LEADERS TO CALL LONDON LONG DISTANCE ON ANY OTHER TELEPHONE WHATSOEVER THAN THE AUTHORISED LONG-DISTANCE RECORDING TELEPHONE ACCORDING TO THE RULES previously established but since totally thrown to the winds! I again insist that any operator or leader or anyone who accepts along distance call from any member of the Royal Family or other leader except on the authorised long-distance recording telephone according to the rules, that that person be immediately fired from his or her job and transferred to some other work.—And the same goes for any secretary or any administrator who accepts such calls at any London Colony on any London telephone, for which any London Colony is responsible, and that means from the top down, I don't care who you are or who you think you are! We'll send you back to the boonies where you came from and where you belong, as we have done before when you disobeyed and refused to keep the rules!
6. IF YOU ADMINISTRATORS CANNOT ENFORCE THESE RULES, WE'LL REMOVE YOU ALSO AND PUT SOME BABE IN THERE WHO'LL OBEY, and we'll get further with them than we do with leaders who don't:
7. C. THE NEXT LEADER, PERSON OR ROYAL FAMILY MEMBER WHO EITHER MAKES OR RECEIVES SUCH AN UNAUTHORISED LONG-DISTANCE CALL ON AN UNAUTHORISED TELEPHONE ANYWHERE WILL BE FORBIDDEN TO MAKE ANY FURTHER TELEPHONE CALLS whatsoever even to the authorised phone and will hereafter be compelled to confine their communications to the mails with no telephone privileges whatsoever! If they disobey this rule as well‚ they will be cut off also from receiving any further either RF and/or WWF Letters whatsoever until such times as we see fit to resume correspondence with them due to their proven repentance‚ confession‚ restitution and tried-and–tested willingness to hereafter keep the rules which we ourselves set down explicitly a year ago regarding phone calls!
8. D. FURTHERMORE‚ ANY ROYAL FAMILY MEMBER, LEADER OR OTHERWISE, WHO HEREAFTER EXCEEDS THE ALLOTED RECORDED THREE MINUTE TIME FOR THEIR EMERGENCY LIFE AND DEATH PHONE CALL ON THE RECORDER‚ SHALL HAVE THEIR TELEPHONE PRIVILEGES SUSPENDED TOTALLY FOR LONG DISTANCE PHONE CALLS TO LONDON until further notice!—And any of you top leaders in London who violate these telephone rules are going to be the first to go, because we cannot have leaders trying to teach others to obey who themselves refuse to do so! An obedient babe could do a better job in your position than a lousy law-breaking leader like you!—And I don't mean perhaps!
9. I MEAN THE ABOVE AND AFORESAID WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL IF I HAVE TO COME BACK TO LONDON PERSONALLY AND RIP BOTH YOU AND YOUR PHONES OUT WITH MY OWN BARE HANDS! And that's the word not only with the bark on it, but the bite as well!—And the next time I hear of a violation of these rules. you are going to hear such a roar you're going to get chewed out as well as spit out besides, if I have to throw both you and your whole department out and close-up your building!
10. WE'LL TURN THE WHOLE WORKS OVER TO SOME OTHER COLONY IN SOME OTHER COUNTRY FULL OF BABES WHO CAN OBEY and love us enough to believe what we say!—And if you think I'm kidding just try me! I've got a ticket home and I can be on the next plane and you will not be happy to see me because it'll probably be the last time, as I will wield the ax and you'll be the first to get it! We'll send you somewhere up to the front lines on some pioneer field as we've done before with those who don't know how to obey and we'll be much better off without you!
11. I MEAN EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU, IF WE HAVE TO FIRE YOU ALL, CLOSE UP YOUR BUILDINGS, MOVE THE OFFICE SOMEWHERE ELSE AND MARIA AND I HAVE TO RUN IT BY OURSELVES! I believe we could do it with a few loyal obedient ones who will do what we say! So you who don't want to keep these rules had better start looking for another field you can flee to before we have to come there in person and give you the boot!
12. POOR PARIS GOT A BLAST BECAUSE OF THEIR IGNORANCE AND A FEW INNOCENTLY MADE MISTAKES which are much easier to forgive and for which we have forgiven them for they are doing a tremendous job, an even better one now that they've had their spanking!
13. BUT LONDON, LIKE ISRAEL OF OLD, KNOWS BETTER AND HAS BEEN THROUGH THIS BEFORE AND YOU'RE NOW ON YOUR LAST LEG, and if you don't obey this time you're finished, if I have to start a whole new headquarters in a whole new place with a whole new set of leaders and banish the whole Royal Family!—And if you don't think I can do it‚ just try me! I'll go straight over your heads to the kids themselves and we'll see who's boss!
14. SOME OF YOU LONDONERS ARE CARRYING MORE THAN YOUR SHARE OF THE LOAD AND DOING SOME OF THE MOST MARVELOUS JOBS I've ever seen with what little you have to work with. But others of you, despite repeated warnings and past experiences, reprimands and demotions, are again making the same mistakes and doing some of the lousiest, most inefficient jobs I have ever seen!—And I warn you this is your last chance to make good! If you don't make it this time, I'll never trust you again and probably never use you again, and I think you know who I mean! You will soon receive the revelation God recently gave me on "The Tree", and if you don't straighten out soon, the axe is going to be laid at the root of the tree and you'll be hewn down so another can grow in your place!
15. YOU THINK BREAKING THE TELEPHONE RULES IS A SMALL THING, but as the Scripture says, "He that breaks the least of these commandments and shall teach others so, is least of all!" (Matt 5:19) And "whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all!" (James 2:10)
16. WHICH MEANS YOU'LL BREAK THE BIGGER ONES AND EVEN THE GREATEST AS WELL AND ARE A TRAITOR TO THE CAUSE!" For he that is faithful in that which is least is also faithful in that which is most" (Luke 16:10) but he that is unfaithful in the least will also be unfaithful in the most and we cannot trust you with anything!
17. IF WE CANNOT TRUST YOU TO KEEP THE TELEPHONE RULES, WE CERTAINLY CANNOT TRUST YOU TO RUN THE WORLD! God showed me again just the other day even while walking down the street that we are now in our training period in this life in preparation for ruling the world in the next! If we do not pass these tests and complete these grades and learn these lessons in this life, we shall certainly be unfit to rule in the next and shall surely be the least of all in the coming Kingdom of God on earth, raised to everlasting shame and contempt before all!
18. THE ONE THING THAT GOD SAYS THAT HIS WORKERS NEED ABOVE ALL IS TO BE "FOUND FAITHFUL" which means loyal and obedient and believing! Anyone found unfaithful on the phone is also disloyal, disbelieving, disobedient and unfaithful in other things as well‚ and can be trusted in nothing and has lost the savour of his spiritual usefulness to God! You are therefore good for nothing but to be cast forth and trampled under the feet of men who are better able to care for the Kingdom of God and take your place!
19. THAT IS JUST HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO KEEP THESE TELEPHONE RULES and/or any of the other rules which you may merely think are minor but which will become major mutinies if we allow you to continue to break the least of them! And that is exactly what is happening right now!
20. SO "BUILDERS BEWARE!"—THIS MEANS YOU!—EVERY ONE OF YOU!—May God have mercy on you! We can't stand you much longer if you don't change! And change you will or we'll change your job! To the least of these!
21. THIS IS OUR FINAL WARNING! If you don't heed it and obey, you are a "Telephone Traitor" fit for nothing but God's garbage pile!—Which will have to be far enough away you can't stink up the whole house anymore!—Do you get the point?—I hope so‚ because we need you—but not if you continue to disobey! We need "Holy Holes" in the head who'll obey!—Amen?—We hope you can.—Love, Dad.
22. P.S.—And anyone who permits such calls or knows of them and doesn't report same is just as guilty and deserves the same treatment!—Amen?—Let's all help everybody keep the rules!—PTL?—Thanks!—PTL?—Thanks—GBY!
"PROBLEM PASTORS!"—MOOctober 3, 1974MWWFL NO.20
Dear Family: Greetings in Jesus' Precious Name! Well, praise the Lord!
23. I THINK I'LL CALL THAT LAST BLAST "TELEPHONE TRAITORS". because that's exactly what you are if you break the telephone rules! But in this one I will have to deal with your housing problem which your telephones prevented us from answering. If you want answers by phone on immediate truly emergency issues‚ you will have to have a telephone and someone there to answer it day or night 24 hours a day‚ seven days a week. As we have said before‚ even if you only get one call a month‚ that call may be so needed that it will be the salvation of some situation which otherwise may be lost. It sounds from your letters that you have nearly lost that building which was such a bargain on the 20-year lease.
24. IF YOU WERE MORE FAITHFUL STUDENTS OF MY LETTERS OF THE PAST, YOU WOULD REMEMBER THAT I HAVE TOLD YOU MANY TIMES BEFORE, NEVER PAY CASH FOR ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN BUY ON TIME, AND NEVER BUY ANYTHING YOU CAN POSSIBLY RENT OR GET FREE, and the longer the time payments the better! Because as you can now see by the present world inflation, the 200 you would have had to pay now would be worth more than the 600 you may never even have to pay later, and you were very foolish not to have snapped up such a bargain regardless of the length of the lease, because the lease means nothing anyway due to the coming crash which you should have known from my Letters!
25. I'M AMAZED THAT ANYONE WOULD HAVE EVEN BEEN WILLING TO GIVE YOU SUCH A LONG LEASE DURING THE PRESENT INFLATION, because 600 tomorrow will not even be worth what 200 is today! And that tomorrow may be less than a year away, when leases and contracts will be worth no more than the paper they're written on, along with all the other "paper-piggy money"‚ stocks, bonds, securities, etc.!
26. YOU FOOLISHLY IGNORED THE SCRIPTURAL INJUNCTION NOT TO WORRY ABOUT TOMORROW MUCH LESS 20 YEARS from now, along with my own continuously repeated warnings never to wait for any important decision from me to a matter which must be answered immediately and cannot wait to hear from me when it is your department, your decision and your responsibility. You must do what you think is best on your own with the help of God and the counsel of your co-labourers who are involved.
27. IT IS YOUR BUSINESS TO MAKE THESE "TENDING-TABLE" DECISIONS ABOUT MATERIAL THINGS AND NOT MINE! It is my business to hear from God and minister to you from His words the spiritual food that you need, and not decide on buildings which I have not seen and know little or nothing of, or any other material matter for that matter which you should settle yourselves because you are there and you know the situation better than I and it is your responsibility to take care of it as a good and faithful steward and deacon of the Lord's tables for His Children!
28. I HAVE SAID THIS SO MANY TIMES AND YET YOU HAVE IGNORED IT AND CONTINUE TO ASK ME FOR THE ANSWERS TO PROBLEMS which I should not only not be involved in but not even bothered about! I am beginning to think that you sometimes want me to make your decisions for you so that in case it's a mistake (which it's most likely to be if I make it without any knowledge of the situation and when it's not my business) so you can blame it on me and not yourself as you are now blaming me for not replying soon enough by phone regarding this building in order to save it!
29. IF YOU LOSE THE BUILDING, IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT‚ because I have told you many times before that this is exactly the kind of decision that you are supposed to make and not I since buildings are your business, not mine so you are to blame, not I! Quit trying to pass the buck, as you so often do on decisions which you have already virtually made yourself, and then write me at the last minute for my approval so you can blame whatever happens on me! Sometimes you disappoint and hurt a lot of other people, as in the ridiculous case of sending for some people to come half way around the world to visit London to "see what a good boy am I"!
30. NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I SAY IT, YOU STILL INSIST ON BRINGING ALL PROBLEMS CASES TO GHQ to see how wonderful you are and how they ought to be to inspire them to be like you, which is probably exactly what they don't need and shouldn't be in their own field in an entirely different part of the world under entirely different circumstances and in an entirely different situation!
31. YOU'RE ALWAYS WANTING THEM TO COME SEE THE BIG SHOTS IN LONDON AND HOW THE BOSSES ARE DOING WHEN YOU OUGHTA BE VISITING THE LITTLE SHOTS IN THE BOONIES TO SEE HOW THEY'RE DOING under their own circumstances in their own field and hear from their own people what the problems are, not from the problem cases themselves! It's as though the State should bring the criminal into court and have the State's prosecutor ask only for his own story in his own defense instead of sending out investigators to find witnesses who can tell you the other side as well!
32. THIS IS JUST HOW RIDICULOUS IS YOUR OFT-FORBIDDEN SYSTEM OF BRINGING PROBLEM CASES ALWAYS TO GHQ at tremendous expense to ask them what the problem is instead of taking your feet off your damned desk and getting off your beastly butt and going out there to see for yourself and to hear the other side as well!
33. THIS IS WHY I'VE ALWAYS SAID WE ALWAYS NEED A FULLTIME WORLD-ROVING TROUBLE-SHOOTER who can constantly patrol the fields and see what's going on for yourself instead of inviting the whole world leadership to come to London at some time or other in another damned luxurious conference or convention instead of hitting the road yourself and visiting the field itself to see what's actually going on!
34. I HAVE BEGGED SEVERAL OF YOU SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE TO DO THIS, but seldom has anyone of you top leaders wanted that much to forsake all to follow Jesus around the world to see for yourself what His poor little sheep's problems really are! Instead, you sit comfortably in the fold and pick up the forbidden phone to call the lost sheep to make his own way home and promise to have a conference with him about his problems after he's safely made his own way back into the fold and you haven't had to risk your life to save him!
35. WE HAVE YET TO HAVE HAD ONE SINGLE VOLUNTEER FOR THIS FULLTIME JOB OF FULLTIME FIELD SUPERVISION, a top Minister or Ambassador who's willing constantly to rove the world and visit every field and every Region and "strengthen the brethren" and "see how they do", as Paul and the Apostles did! Instead you call the errant brethren into Antioch GHQ for a convention so you can comfortably listen to their reports, often erroneous from errant leaders, instead of visiting with all the brethren on all the fields and ask the sheep themselves what the hell's wrong with their shepherd and their own fold and see and hear it for yourself!
36. I NEVER HEARD OF A BUSINESS YET NOR A DENOMINATION NOR A GOVERNMENT NOR ANY KIND OF AN ORGANISATION WHO DIDN'T HAVE SOME KIND OF A TOP TROUBLESHOOTER, Secretary of State, Foreign Minister or field supervisor who could shoot out at a moment's notice to any place in the world where there were problems and try to nip them in the bud before they killed the whole plant! It should be and could be one of the most interesting jobs in the whole Revolution, as well as one of the toughest and most sacrificial but not one of you has ever wanted to do it consistently.
37. YOU HAVE OCCASIONALLY VISITED A LITTLE NEARBY FIELD HERE OR THERE, AND USUALLY ONLY FOR A DAY OR TWO OF TEMPORARY DISCOMFORT AND TO OFTEN BRING BACK WITH YOU THE GUILTY PARTIES to be given the royal red-carpet treatment of luxurious entertainment to see how sumptuously you live on their hard–earned dough at GHQ setting them a dandy–bad example of which they should be the last to follow in their own hardship front line field situation, instead of going out there and suffering with them to see and hear and feel what they're actually having to personally go through in order to really understand their situation and give the right kind of recommendation for its rectification!
38. HOW MANY MORE TIMES AM I GOING TO HAVE TO SAY THIS? To paraphrase an old song, "How many times must I tell you these things‚ before you'll turn to the right?" "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"—as God said to Isaiah His prophet. I would gladly go myself if I could and I have in times past! Even when we were in evangelistic work, we used to return year after year to the little churches we had established or where we had held meetings to see how they were doing now which I'll grant you wasn't very encouraging and which is why we started the Revolution, to break out of a Church System that didn't work! But at least we tried and we tried to keep after them!
39. WHEN HE HAD OUR FIRST CLUB I VISITED IT NEARLY EVERY NIGHT to see how it was doing‚ often spying on it incognito from the outside through the front window or checking the back-alley door or surprising its residents and staff at about the time of their midnight retiral!
40. LATER WHEN ON THE ROAD I OFTEN VISITED EVERY VEHICLE AT NIGHT to see if they had proper heat, blankets, ventilation and were as comfortable as possible and had all their needs supplied as best we could, sometimes surprising them by sticking my head in their window when they least expected it!
41. AT TSC, WE USED TO VISIT EVERY CABIN when you were all in classes or meetings to see exactly what was going on and what the living conditions were and what the needs were or eavesdropped outside your meeting place to see what you were teaching and how the kids were reacting so we could really know what was going on!
42. BUT SOME OF YOU SAT OVERSTUFFED IN YOUR OVERSTUFFED CHAIRS IN YOUR OVERSTUFFED LIVING ROOM WITH AN OVERSTUFFED STAFF who hadn't inspected the cabins or the grounds or attended one of the meetings or classes for a week or a month! And what some of you did then you're still doing now and almost as badly, only on a grander scale, and we'd be in one helluva mess if I didn't continue to ride herd on you at least by mail! And even that doesn't seem to do much good!
43. SOME OF YOU ARE SO BUSY BOSSING OTHERS YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO READ WHAT THE BOSS HIMSELF HAS ALREADY SAID, which could solve a lot of your problems. Undershepherds who are so busy with the sheep they haven't time to listen to the Shepherd's instructions are going to have nothing but trouble! Some of you need to dig back into what we've already said on nearly all of these issues, and which is what your Index was made for and your LT Books printed for!
44. I AM ACTUALLY AMAZED WHEN I OFTEN GET THE SAME QUESTIONS FROM SOME OF OUR TOP LEADERS WHICH I ANSWERED LONG AGO in some of their long–lost Letters which they haven't taken time nor trouble to read lately, but would rather run ask teacher again than dig it out for themselves as I've said before! How long will we be ever-learning but never coming to a knowledge! According to history we never learn from history! May God help us!—And you!
45. IT WAS REALLY YOUR FAULT PARIS HAD SO MUCH TROUBLE because you didn't get over there often enough and long enough and do what I told you to do about those kings, contracts and finances and the poor kids and their leaders were the sufferers!
46. I REALISE YOU HAVE A LOT OF PROBLEMS AT HOME, but if you have to you oughta turn'em over to somebody else and hit the road and see how the whole world's doing and obey, and God could use you to help solve everybody's problems! Amen?
47. IF HOME CAN DO WITHOUT YOU FOR A WEEK, THEY CAN PROBABLY CARRY ON WITHOUT YOU FOR A MONTH!—OR MAYBE EVEN A YEAR OR FOREVER! If you'd obey God and everybody did his own job and you'd oversee'em all to see they did!—How's that for an answer! Probably not the one you wanted but the one you need! GBY! ILY!—Dad.
P.S.: Believe it or not, this is actually a promotion!—"Servant of all!"—Hallelujah!—Want it?