August 31, 1978DFO 775

—By Father David

(A Talk to Tim!)

1. SOMEBODY ONCE SAID, "YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ." It's like the old saying about health, "You are what you eat‚" physically. Well‚ you are what you read, mentally and spiritually. I can just about tell you where you're at spiritually by what you're reading the most.

2. HOW CAN YOU SAY YOU'RE SEEKING FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD if you spend most of your time reading other books instead of the Word of God? Think it over. You are what you read & what you're hungry for‚ so be sure you're getting your right spiritual food.

3. YOU CAN DEVELOP A PERVERTED APPETITE IN READING BY OVER–READING THE WRONG THINGS, no matter how good or useful or interesting. You can develop a perverted appetite for it that increases the more you read that way‚ just like if you eat the wrong foods.

4. BEFORE I WAS FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT I READ ALL KINDS OF BOOKS. I was a voracious reader! I looked forward to summertime when I could spend all day in the water & all night reading, & I read books, books, books, books, books!

5. THANK GOD THEY WERE MOSTLY GOOD BOOKS‚ all very interesting, & in almost anything you read there's something good. There was even something good about the first knowledge the Devil ever gave Adam & Eve!—But there was an awful hell of a lot of evil in it too! You are what you read, & what you like to read most.

6. I HOPE THAT YOU ARE GETTING YOUR SPIRITUAL FOOD & INSPIRATION, because you are what you read. If you like to read the Word of God best, then that shows you love the Word of God‚ & you would rather hear from the Lord than anybody.

7. WHEN I WAS FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT, FINALLY AT THE AGE OF 19, I HAD NO TASTE OR DESIRE TO READ ANYTHING BUT THE BIBLE! I stopped reading everything else, & I had a wall full of books!—A lot of wonderful books, great books, educational books, reference books, valuable books, things I thought I ought to read some day when I had time, after I'd read enough of the Bible. But I found that I was too busy reading God's Word & preparing things to feed other people from His Word to ever read all of those books!

8. THOSE YEARS OF STUDY, YOU'RE NOW GETTING THE BENEFIT FROM IN MY LETTERS, or have, I hope. Of course, you don't if you don't read them. I think some people have the idea, "What's the use of reading the old Letters? We're getting the fresh wine right now-forget the old ones!" Well, I'll tell you, I have the idea this way:

9. WHAT'S THE USE OF TELLING YOU THE SAME THINGS NOW THAT I TOLD YOU YEARS AGO & ARE ALREADY IN THE LETTERS? Why should I repeat those now? I'm giving you the new wine, not what I gave you ten years ago. So if you don't read the old Letters, you're missing a basic foundation in basic doctrine & basic fundamental spiritual food. It's like your basic course.

10. WHAT WE'RE GETTING TODAY IS LIKE THE ICING ON THE CAKE. In some ways it's sort of the frills, the extras, the interesting, odd, new, far-out stuff, but it's not necessarily always your basic fundamental foundation food.

11. WHATEVER YOU'RE READING IS SPIRITUAL FOOD, whether you believe it or not‚ and if it's not the Word of God written by a man of God, then it is the word of the Devil written by a man of Satan!—No matter how good it is, how interesting it is, no matter how much truth it may contain amongst it lies, it is all the more subtle‚ all the more deceitful & all the more damning, because it's not all so!

12. AS A YOUNG CHRISTIAN YOUR AGE, I LAID ASIDE EVERYTHING ELSE BUT MY BIBLE. For years I even refused to read a newspaper! I finally began reading the newspaper because I figured I ought to see what's happening about these Bible prophecies, are they coming true or not? But beloved, I have read my Bible several times. I have studied it word for word. I can quote you what you need to know, I have analyzed Bible prophecy.

13. I HAVE DONE MY YEARS & YEARS OF BIBLE STUDY & I HAVE THAT SOLID ROCK FOUNDATION of doctrine so I don't get led astray by every little breeze of the Devil in some stupid idiotic book of man! These are your formative years, your years of getting a foundation in truth. My God‚ it's no time to read the lies of the Devil!

14. I GOT A STRONG WARNING FROM THE LORD THAT YOU ARE NOT READING ENOUGH BIBLE, much less MO letters! I don't see how most of you've got time to read anything else. I read the newspaper now because it's important for me to keep up with current events to help analyze them for you to help you understand them.

15. AT LEAST WHAT YOU READ IN THE NEWSPAPER IS SUPPOSED TO BE TRUE, it's supposed to be news‚ but even that isn't always so. It takes the Spirit of God to be able to discern sometimes whether they're telling the truth or not.

16. I HAVE A WHOLE WORLD TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR. I need to not only know the truth of God's Word of the past, the Bible, but the truth of God's Word of today, what He's giving me personally. Plus, I need to keep my eye on the world & its events to see what is happening & how those things are coming to pass & those prophecies are being fulfilled.

17. WHEN I WAS A NEWBORN BABE, NEWLY ANOINTED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD, I WAS SO HUNGRY FOR THE WORD OF GOD that for years I never read anything but the Bible! Anything! For years I wouldn't even read a newspaper, much less a magazine, much less some stupid book written by some man!—I don't care how much of an intelligent man he is, if he's not a man of God! I didn't even read books in those days by men of God! All I wanted to hear was the Bible, & I read it & read it & read it, & studied & studied & studied it. Thank God I did! Well, you're still in that stage. I don't see how you've got time to read anything else but your Bible!

18. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ MO LETTERS, then for God's sake read the Bible! I daresay there's not one of you who has read every single word in your Bible, much less the MO Letters! Why not?

19. WHAT EXCUSE HAVE YOU GOT FOR NOT HAVING READ THE WHOLE BIBLE? My God, you'd think of all books in this world you'd read‚ even if you never wanted to read a MO Book or see another MO Letter, which have only lasted about 10 years‚ you'd certainly want to read the Bible, which has lasted for thousands!

20. SOME OF THESE GUYS LIKE FREUD & NIETZSCHE AS GOOD AS SAID "GOD IS DEAD‚" and are therefore of the Devil! What good can come out of them?—Even if part of what they say might be true. Part of what the Devil says is always true, because he couldn't get you to believe his lies unless he told you some truth mixed with it which would deceive you into thinking his lies were true too!

21. REALLY, I DON'T SEE WHAT BUSINESS YOU'VE GOT BEING IN OUR FAMILY IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED ENOUGH TO READ THE MO LETTERS, including the old ones, to see where we came from & how we got this way. We may not seem to amount to much, but not many other religious organisations have gained this much ground in only ten years!

22. I COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT, YOU COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT, GOD'S SPIRIT DID IT! But I obeyed God and I taught what God told me to teach & I said what He told me to say & I revealed to you what He gave to me. I obeyed, & this is the fruit & the results. Don't tell me it wasn't of God!

23. BUT I COULD GIVE YOU SOME GOD-DAMNED HELL OF A PICTURE OF THE FRUITS OF NIETZSCHE & FREUD which are driving the world insane!—Not sane but insane!—& have ever since they started!

24. I DON'T SEE HOW YOU HARDLY HAVE TIME TO READ ANYTHING‚ you hardly even have time to read your Bible! But if you've got any time to read at all, for God's sake, read your Bible if you don't want to read MO Letters! You will find it one of the most interesting fascinating books in the world!

25. IF YOU HAVE READ WHOLE BIG THICK VOLUMES OF OTHER BOOKS & NEVER EVEN FINISHED YOUR BIBLE, THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU SPIRITUALLY somewhere that you're not hungry for the Word of God! You're hungry for perverted food, you're hungry for food which is not food. "Why labour ye for that which is not meat & that which is not bread?" (Is.55:2; Jn.6:27.)

26. THOSE BOOKS ARE FULL OF LIES & DECEIT! They are of man & the Devil! How can you waste your time & your energy & your strength reading them? How can you spend hours & hours reading these big thick books by not only ungodly, but Satanic men?—Men who I am convinced were actually demon-possessed and speak with the voice of the Devil! To fill your mind & heart & soul with that kind of lies is bound to have a spiritual effect on you & pervert you spiritually!

27. IT'S HURTING YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE! It's hurting your relationship with God, that you're more interested in listening to man than you are to God! Don't tell me you're putting God first when you're reading books like that when you ought to be reading your Bible or reading the MO books, no matter how crazy they may seem! Maybe you don't believe in the MO Letters, but I do! I know I got them from God, whether you believe it or not!

28. HOW COULD YOU NEGLECT THE WORDS OF LIFE FOR WORDS THAT I CANNOT BUT SAY ARE THE WORDS OF DEATH? God's Word preaches life, man's word cannot preach anything but death, especially that kind of men! If sometimes you wonder about me, I want to tell you, sometimes I wonder about you!

29. HOW COULD YOU EVEN BE A CHRISTIAN & READ THAT KIND OF BOOKS? Now I'm just being blunt with you, but I had a strong warning from the Lord last night that you're being poisoned by these perversions! Perversions of truth are more dangerous than outright lies! There is something wrong with you spiritually if you have a perverted appetite for the wrong kind of inspiration. It worries me! What's eatin' you?

30. "WHOSE WORDS DO EAT LIKE A CANKER" (CANCER), God's Word says! (2Ti.2:17.) They are false prophets & their words do eat like a cancer, & it's eating your soul, corrupting & corroding your spirit without your even knowing it, especially if you keep on reading such trash!

31. YOU MUST BE PRETTY SPIRITUALLY INSENSITIVE & getting pretty spiritually numb & dumb not to know it! Timothy, something is wrong somewhere! You say, "Oh well, I just read it for relaxation." As one great man has said,

32. "TELL ME WHAT YOU DO WITH YOUR SPARE TIME, & I'LL TELL YOU WHAT YOU ARE!" In other words‚ tell me what you do when you can do whatever you want to do & what you like to do‚ & I'll tell you what you are!

33. I AM GOD'S MAN FOR THIS HOUR & I AM THE PROPHET OF GOD for you, & you had better believe it or you are in serious spiritual trouble! And if you are more interested in reading what ungodly satanic demon-possessed men had to say than you are in what the prophet of God had to say, & the Word of God, then something is wrong with you spiritually! (Poor Tim!—And you?)

34. DON'T TELL ME, "OF COURSE I'M MORE INTERESTED IN YOU & GOD'S WORD. I just spend hours & hours at a time in my spare time reading this other junk." What you read in your spare time, particularly at your stage, is what you are, because you are in the student learning stage now! You have not by any means arrived! I haven't either, but at least I'm a hell of a long ways further ahead than you are!

35. THIS IS THE TIME WHEN YOU OUGHT TO BE STUDYING YOUR BIBLE & MO LETTERS, the Word of God‚ & not wasting your time on ridiculous words‚ lies, deceits & distortions of man & the Devil! I don't see how you've got time for it.

36. IN A NORMAL SETTLED SITUATION I WORK ABOUT 6 HOURS A DAY ON THE WORD of God.—What God has given me at least, for your sake & your consumption, to make it palatable & condensed & edible. When I knock off, then I usually lie down to rest & send for someone to try to translate the television news or read the paper.

37. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH WATCHING A LITTLE TELEVISION, I do it too‚ for a few minutes relaxation. You know what you're watching, you don't have to worry about it. You might learn a few things. You always find a few good pieces of food even when you're digging through the garbage, even your ungodly books!

38. I WANT TO TELL YOU RIGHT NOW‚ IF YOU SPEND MORE TIME READING BOOKS LIKE THAT THAN YOU DO READING GOD'S WORD, something is wrong with you spiritually! You have a perverted appetite spiritually. You have a perverted hunger. If God's Word does not satisfy you‚ then something is wrong with your spiritual appetite!

39. IF SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOUR PHYSICAL APPETITE, THEN YOU'RE SICK! Even if you're not already sick, you soon will be! And the same is true spiritually: You cannot dwell on that stuff & make that your major source of inspiration, relaxation, recreation, whatever you want to call it‚ without it affecting you. It's not God's Word, it's not the truth.

40. THE DEVIL ALWAYS MIXES IN LITTLE FASCINATING ABSORBING TRUTHS LIKE, "AND YE SHALL BE AS GODS." (Gen.3:5) That was a tremendous truth, fascinating, tempting, intriguing—my, what a tempting truth that was! "And ye shall be as gods!" So they just skipped over & ignored the lie when he said, "Ye shall not surely die," because they began dying from the first bite of his fiction! & you will begin dying spiritually from the first bite of that trash! (Poor Tim!—& you?)

41. A LOT OF PEOPLE EAT JUNK FOOD THAT THEY THINK IS GOOD FOOD just because it looks like food, when it's really trash! That kind of stuff is even worse because it is deceitful & it is deceiving you & misleading you & lying to you, & you're getting to where you believe it's good when it's bad! (Deb gave it to him!)

42. I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW ANYBODY COULD BE INTERESTED IN THE DIABOLICAL LIES, DECEITS & fabrications of man.—"Cunningly devised fables" as the Bible calls it (2Pet.1:16), instead of the true Word of God. Oh yes, they're clever, very clever!—Like all Satan's lies!

43. THOSE BOOKS ARE WRITTEN WITH THE DEMONIC SATANIC WISDOM OF THE DEVIL HIMSELF! Cunningly devised to deceive you & to lead you astray & to pervert you & warp you & twist you spiritually to where you don't know what is true!

44. YOU SAY, "OH, I CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE. I know what he says, I know when he's telling the truth, I know when it's not true." Well, why would you want to read all his lies & read all his junk & spend so much time wasting your strength & your poor eyes on all that kind of hodge-podge & confusion, when God's Word has more psychology, more philosophy, & God knows certainly more truth than all the rest of the books in the world put together!

45. THEY ARE NOT OF GOD, THEY ARE OF THE DEVIL! I don't care how much truth you find in them, they are still the Devil's truth & just absolutely submerged in his lies! I'd rather see you burn them than have you led astray! They are spiritual drugs which benumb your spiritual sensitivity to the voice & the truth of God!

46. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET A PERVERTED PHYSICAL APPETITE to where you crave sweets & candy? You lose your appetite for good wholesome food‚ and you crave the perversion, & you crave the junk, & you crave the sweets & poisons instead of the good wholesome food!

47. YOU CANNOT SERVE TWO MASTERS! You will either love the one & hate the other, or cleave to the one & despise the other. You cannot serve God & Mammon! (Mt.6:24.) —And those books are not of God‚ they are of Mammon, the Devil, & they have led millions astray! No matter how good they may be, they still waste people's time & keep them from reading the Bible.

48. I'D BE SO FURIOUS WHEN I HAD TO WADE THROUGH THOSE RIDICULOUS TEXTBOOKS IN COLLEGE full of the lies & distortions of man! That's why I got up & stomped out of 8 different universities! I just couldn't stand any of them, including 3 Bible schools! I couldn't stomach those lies!

49. EVEN WHEN IT WASN'T LIES, IT WAS JUST A WASTE OF TIME on foolishness! Why waste time on complicated confused theories & thoughts of man, when the Bible was right there, so simple, direct & to the point? Nearly everything you have to know is in the Bible, except perhaps current events, recent revelations & a few other things.

50. THE DEVIL IS A LIAR FROM THE BEGINNING & THE FATHER OF IT! (Jn.8:44.)—& let me tell you, his lies are very clever! At least when you're watching television you know most of it's fiction. But the closer the fiction gets to fact‚ the more dangerous it becomes‚ the more subtle & the more deceitful it becomes. The more your books mix fact with fiction, the harder it is for you to discern the difference, so why read fiction at all?

51. I SELDOM READ ANOTHER BOOK BUT THE BIBLE AFTER I WAS REALLY FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT & had dedicated my life to the Lord's service, except a few books I was forced to read in my education by the demonic educational system! I couldn't do it when I was a young Christian & I don't have time for it now!

52. THAT WAS REALLY MY EDUCATION‚ I SAT ALL DAY & READ THE BIBLE! Whereas before that, even though I was a Christian, as an early teenager I spent all my time reading all kinds of crazy books! Now if that's as far along as you are spiritually, then I can understand how you read books like that. (Tim didn't last much longer!)

53. YOU'RE IMMATURE, YOU'RE JUVENILE! You may think it's smart, but it's not. It shows you're immature spiritually to even crack open a book like that & waste your time reading it!

54. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU THAT YOU ARE HUNGRY FOR THE WISDOM OF THE WORLD WHICH IS FOOLISHNESS TO GOD, as the Bible calls it? (1Co.3:19.) Those books you're reading are foolishness to God! Foolishness! God's Word says so! The wisdom of man, the wisdom of this world‚ is absolute ridiculous laughable foolishness to God!

55. MAYBE THAT'S WHY YOU'RE READING THEM, they're funny entertainment, I don't know. Maybe you think they're a big joke‚ they're funny, & you enjoy reading jokes. But not from what I've heard. You're being sucked in by the lies of the Devil reading psychology like Freud!

56. I'D HAVE A HARD TIME COUNTING ON MORE THAN ONE HAND THE ACTUAL BOOKS THAT I HAVE READ since I was filled with the Spirit & dedicated my life to the Lord, even serious books, even non-fiction. In those early years I had no time to read anything but the Bible, & I'm glad I did! Because until I had read the Bible I didn't know what it was all about, but it's got all the answers!

57. I HAD HAD A GOOD RELIGIOUS TRAINING in Sunday School and church & I heard hundreds & hundreds of preachers & thousands of sermons. But one guy would say one thing & one guy would say another, & I wanted to know the real thing. I wanted to read the Bible & see what the real thing had to say, & I did!

58. I THANK GOD I LIVED IN THE BIBLE FOR THOSE YEARS! I just virtually memorised the whole works, & you can hardly tell me a thing but what I can find it! I may not have memorised the chapters & the verses, but I usually, like Paul, know what book it's in & who said it.

59. HOW CAN YOU WASTE YOUR TIME READING ANYTHING ELSE WHEN YOU HAVE NOT EVEN READ THE WHOLE BIBLE YET?—The greatest most enduring wisest most truthful book in the whole world that you can really trust! It's ridiculous to spend your time reading the foolish wisdom of man! It's worse than trash because it is the vaunted wisdom of man & pretends to be so know-it-all, the sophistry of man & all his philosophies & psychology & theories like Freud's!

60. A LOT OF THIS JUNK OF THE WISDOM OF MAN IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU WISE! This was one of the temptations of Adam & Eve in the Garden: When she looked at the tree, what does it say? She saw that it was good to look at, & it was good for food, & would make you wise. (Gen.3:6.) The first temptation of man by the Devil was something to make you supposedly wise!—Knowledge!

61. WELL I WANT TO TELL YOU SOMETHING, READING THAT KIND OF BOOKS WILL NOT MAKE YOU WISE! It will make you dumber than you ever were before & thicker & more confused & further from the truth than ever! Now that's the truth! And I am worried about you! (& I was right about Tim!)

62. IT'S LIKE POISON IN THE CAMP TO EVEN HAVE THOSE BOOKS AROUND! Once you have rejected the good & you've chosen the evil, & you get accustomed to reading the evil, pretty soon "truth resisted loses its power over your soul"! (2Th.2:10-12.)—Which in case you want to know, is also a psychological fact! The more you swallow the Devil's lies & his man's wisdom‚ the more you're going to believe it!

63. I ONCE BURNED ALL THE BOOKS IN THE CAMP IN TSC & had them burned throughout the Revolution! I said, "We don't need any more books than our Bibles!" It was a good time to do it too, because they were all young brand new Christians & that's all they needed to read & they sure needed to read it! They certainly didn't have time to read any thing else! That was even before MO Letters!

64. MY LORD, I HAD A HARD TIME GETTING ENOUGH TIME TO READ MY BIBLE WHEN I WAS A YOUNG CHRISTIAN! Although in the summertime between school years I read it all day! I was particularly interested in Bible Prophecy, & read it all, all of its ancient history right on up through the Early Church. So I really got deep into the Bible & deep in the Word, & I thank God for it!

65. I FOUND THE BIBLE WAS SUCH AN ENORMOUS STUDY & SO FASCINATING & so deep & so broad that it was "waters to swim in"! I didn't have time to fiddle around with anything else. My Lord, if you want to read something, why don't you read the Bible? If you don't like to read MO Letters, read the Bible at least! But I wonder how you can be working & living in our Family if you don't even have enough faith in what God has revealed to me to read it?

66. YOU SAY, "WELL I BELIEVE IT, BUT I DON'T HAVE TO READ IT." As we've already said about prayer, you believe in prayer as much as you pray. I would say you believe in the Bible as much as you read it, you believe in the MO Letters as much as you read them, or you believe in that other junk as much as you read it! And that is the facts, that's the truth!

67. I DON'T CARE HOW SMART YOU ARE! I don't care how useful you are, I don't care how much help you are. If you are not going to live close to the Lord & His Word & to me spiritually, in the truth of His Word in the Bible & in the Letters & what God has shown us, if you're not hungry & crave that kind of spiritual food much more than anything else, I would be afraid to have you near me very long! (He was soon gone!)

68. THE DEVIL HAS ALREADY GOT YOU TRIPPED, & you're already tripping out on something else, & it's not my trip & it's not the Lord's trip‚ & it's really going to trip you for sure! You are going to stumble over that junk! (He did!)

69. IF THE BIBLE & THE LETTERS DO NOT SATISFY YOUR HUNGER FOR KNOWLEDGE & for the truth & the things of the Spirit‚ then you have a perverted appetite & a craving for perversions, & I would be afraid to have you working with us much longer! Now that's the word with the bark on it! You can take it or leave it!—Take His Word for it!