Question#275:: "Some pretend to believe the truth of the message and exposition books for money tricks in translation and printing; are you aware of such thieves or not?"

Answer:Yes my brother, I am aware of such thieves. I have tried them and found them liars, and I have already devised certain plans to catch them as we go along with the Lord's work. So, if you don't understand this question: now you get a place like India with more than one billion people, and you get a place like Africa with how many million people, where everybody fight for survival, cannot get a job and it is a common thing for a doctor to do be doing some labouring to take care of his family. It's a different system from what you and I are accustomed to. You could think of every trick in the book and all kinds of schemes that a man will try to workup in order for survival, so it's the survival of the fittest. So every opportunity a man gets to feed his family that is living on the streets or living in an eight by eight little house, and everybody is in there, he will try to grab at every opportunity. So you will have all kinds of schemes in religious circles, political circles and everything, rising in order to live, so you have got to know how to deal with these people, by God's grace.

In Africa, India, Philippines and several other places, those people are very much poverty stricken, so if they see that they can make some money through pretending to be a Christian, they would embrace that; if they think that they could open a little church, have four people in there and call themselves pastors, in order to get support from overseas, they will do that. If they see a religious book or magazine circulating, some of them write the authors right away and say, "I believe, and I want to work with you.", whether those books contain lies, or truth, he is not concerned with that, but he wants to belong to a religion to feed his family, so you got to look out for these kind of things.

There are people who don't have any churches, and they have letter heads with church names, and declare themselves pastors and have no members and don't know anything about Christianity, who write to all these big fellows around the world and fool them, and they think that they really found a believer , and I heard some of those stories. One fellow sent twenty five thousand US dollars to translate and print, and he never seen that fellow again. So while you are doing these things, you have got to watch what you are doing too. You could be dealing with a crook from Nigeria. Nigeria is full of crooks. Over one hundred million people, and some of the biggest crooks are in Nigeria. You talk about educated, you talk about a silver tongue that they have. They have six hundred churches, and some of them have only five or twelve members, and you got to work with them. It's a big job in seeking out the sincere, and the honest in heart who really wants the Word of God.

You find when a hundred letters come, I got to examine them carefully, pray over them, watch it, write back the man, find out his motives and find out his objectives. I have a little plan to find the genuine from the crook, and that is, as long as I could find one genuine man who proves himself to be genuine, then I refer all those letters to him and I say, "Now you know the people in your country, you know the thieves, the vagabonds and the genuine." "Do you know Tom, Dick and Harry?" And this genuine man is going to tell me: "Yes, Tom is a thief, and Harry is Trouble, and Dick has a little sincerity in him." I say, "Now, you are down there and I am up here. I want you to deal with your countrymen. They called and ask for money, they want to translate and they want to do all kinds of things. Try to deal with them." So then, he will sift them out, write them letters, ask them this, ask them that, and he will declare to me that, "he is a crook", or that, he is a sincere man; we could work with him. We have some thing in place. So my brother, thank you for your information. I have these thieves and crooks marked, and we are going to deal with them. I don't release confidence and money quickly. I wait and watch everything, because more are the children of the desolate, than the children of the married wife

There are people who will write and say, "I want to translate", one says, "I want to print for you", another says, "I want to distribute, but you have to send so much money, because it costs so much money in the customs." I found out that it don't cost one penny in that state. I say, "You are a thief". And then, everybody wants to build a church and buy a motor car. As far as they are concerned, in their minds, everybody is rich in the western world, and all that they have to do is write a letter and tell you to buy a motor car, build a church and pay their way to Trinidad, "they want to come for the seals. I have to let them know I am a poor man, and all my money is going to the books and the publication, and we are a very small enterprise, which is the truth, and if the Lord lays it upon the heart of some member to give you twenty US dollars, then I will surely get it to you, but we are not that kind of people supporting missionary work and supporting people on the evangelical field. We have one mission and that is to print and send the Word of God through literature, and our money is always exhausted. We are poor people like anybody else. They cannot get that out of their minds that every body in the west are rich people. If one of those persons in whom I have placed confidence prove to be deceptive and greedy of money like Judas, then Satan can have a great advantage against the Lord's work. My spiritual assessment and discernment of their motives and objectives can fail, but such a deceiver shall receive their reward of a hypocrite, even like Judas who was eternally lost.

Question#276:"Please separate bread and fish disciples from needy saints; I am confused?

Answer:We have bread and fish disciples in religious circles and we are very familiar with this story. Jesus broke the loaves and the fishes and fed a multitude of people, then he went away and traveled on a boat, and they traveled on foot, and came across there by the thousands. A next preacher would think that he won five thousand or ten thousand church members, but Jesus had discernment. The Holy Spirit revealed to him that the crowd that were following him, something was wrong, and he said, "You are not following me because of the Word of God, but because of the bread and the fishes that you ate." Those are bread and fish disciples.

There are people who follow the message and the Word of God for different natural reasons. They follow for a woman. They want a church woman, some want a church man, some want help from a church, and some look for identification. I went to a doctor one time, he was an old Chinese. I said, "Doctor, are you a Christian?" He said, "I am a Christian for convenience sake, but my religion is an eastern religion. I came from the east and I believe in my Chinese religion, and I am a Christian for convenience sake." That man spoke the truth, and he was a catholic. When you become a catholic, you have a lot of powers. The priest speaks up for you. But then I turned back and said, "Doctor, you said that you belong to an eastern religion." "Christianity belongs to the east. It started in the east." Boy, that doctor got so stupid, he did not know what to say. He had to get rid of me quickly from inside of that office. I said, and a little while after that fellow died. You don't use Christianity for convenience sake. You better look well into your Bible and know that Christ died on Calvary for your salvation.

Bread and fish disciples belong to Christ for convenience sake, and there will be a lot of regrets at the judgment bar. If you seek something natural, it will block your ear from hearing the Word, because your mind is so much upon the natural things that you are seeking: a woman, a man, money, identification with a certain group or a certain church.

There are different purposes, and how do you divide these bread and fish disciples? The bread and fish disciple, his motives and objectives are not after the word of God. Jesus said, "You did not follow me for the word. Labor not for the natural bread, but labor for the bread of life that came down from heaven." You ought to labor for the heavenly bread. The people who are insincere and are termed bread and fish disciples, they actually labor, not for eternal life, but they are seeking the natural. So the bread and fish is a natural type, poor and needy saints you will always have them, Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you." So, as long as the world continues you will have poor and needy saints; genuinely poor like Lazarus. He was not a bread and fish disciple, he was a genuine believer. So the difference between a bread and fish disciple and poor and needy saints is that. " the poor gladly heard the gospel" their desires are eternal life. The Lord will allow the poor to be amongst us, and in this world, in order to exercise our bowels of mercy and compassion. So, you will have poor, needy and distressed brothers, and we ought to open up our bowels of mercy and compassion, and not because of our hardness of heart that you classify a brother or a sister as a bread and fish disciple, or because they have to ask a favor of you a couple times for the week, or a couple times for the month. We ought to appreciate our brothers and sisters and the value of a soul must not be measured in dollars and cents. No! You look beyond that. The poor and needy is in a different class. There are a lot of poor brethren in Africa, India, the Caribbean, South America and in the Philippines. They are so thankful and happy when you send to them just twenty dollars.

I sent a man a small donation. He wrote back and he doesn't have lips enough to thank the Lord for the donors, and said, "Brother, I bought shoes for my family, I fed my family, and several things that they needed; thank God for the saints in Bethel." Bread and fish disciples are different all entirely. So to place it in it's right category, bread and fish disciples are placed into the category of people seeking the natural things of life, not only food and drink. They seek blessings: motor cars, houses, lands, wife, husband, or whatever natural, is classified as bread and fish disciples. People who are poor and needy and are saints of God, they look up unto the Lord, and cry to him, for the Lord to supply their needs. They don't go around actually begging; they don't go and be a burden upon people. The best way for a needy or poor person to act, is to pray to the Lord and say, "Lord, I am hungry, I'm famished, I want clothing, I want shelter, I want food." Pray to your heavenly father who looks upon the sparrow and feeds the sparrow, and after you finish pray genuinely, then express your needs to your brethren. Don't beg them, because everybody are not brethren, everybody don't have bowels of compassion and mercy, so you don't go and say, "Brother, give me a dollar, or brother give me ten dollars." You let them know, "Brother, I am in need. I don't have food today for my children, please pray for me." Ask them to pray. If the Lord touches their heart, and if that is a Christian, he cannot know that you are hungry and your children will be starving today, and not try to help. And if he doesn't give that lending and helping hand, walk away from him and go to a next brother. It will save you a lot of insults, and you may even be asked to do a favor that is immoral. There is plenty evil and wickedness in the hearts of men, that if they do a favor to you, they think that you owe them something. They will make you pay with your bodies young ladies. That is why I don't believe in young women or wives asking for favors from each and every body. Let your husband go and do that asking. That is sound teaching I am giving you.

"My doormen are quarrelsome, talk when singing and praying is going on, they are full of pride, and visitors are offended and leave; what to do with them?"

Answer:"Now brethren, a doorman is a very important person in the House of God, and Brother David said, "I would rather be a doorkeeper in the House of God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." Why is this doorman so important in the House of God? That doorman is the first person that you will meet at the front door and even a stranger. If he does not have the right Christian spirit and he treats a visitor in the wrong way, that is the impression that the visitor will have of the whole church, for the minister, for every person. If that doorman is a hog and don't know how to speak to people, then that's the message he will convey to the visitor. In this case, visitors leave when they come, they stomp out because this doorman is full of pride. When you stand at the door and you have to show a person where to sit, and where not to sit, if you don't have the right Christian spirit you could become proud and act like a boss instead of acting like a humble servant of God. This doorman must have the right personality, he must be a humble man, very courteous, very mannerly, very polite and full of Christian virtues, otherwise he cannot fill the post of a doorman.

Some people, you give them a little something to do in the House of God and they think that they are soldiers, think that they are in the military or the army or somewhere, so people come by the door and they say, "Yes, who are you and what is your name?" Now that is not church affairs, that is police affairs. You ask a man his name, and where he is from, and for his ID card and things like that. This is the House of God. When a man walks into the House of God, he is expecting to meet different people, he is expecting to meet righteous people, holy people, friendly people, nice people, and the doorman has got to be a polite man and very courteous, that even though somebody comes and sit in the wrong place he must have something in place to take care of that. Then the person whose seat is occupied must have a Christian spirit, that if you come in and see a stranger sitting on your seat, be polite enough to stand up. It's a soul you are trying to win. You shouldn't come and stand over your seat and say, "Who put him here?" Is that all the consideration you have for a soul? I would be very surprised of a believer who has only that consideration for a soul.

If I find somebody on my seat on my family seats, even though they are believers who come here for years, I would not be so proud as to come and stand up in the service and say, "What are you doing on my seat?" No, I would find somewhere else; I will sit outside on a bench. That's my brother, that's my sister. There is some reason why they are sitting there. Maybe they are sick, maybe they are confused, maybe the Lord is trying my spirit. I got to humble myself. Any doorman like that, my pastor brother, give him one or two warning, call him into a council, speak to him and if he don't know what is required of a doorman, then teach him, and if he will practice that, kick him out from such an office. While you are trying to win a soul here, he is killing people by the door.

When you give certain people little offices, while you are praying and trusting the Lord, singing and crying to the Lord, and they have the liberty to walk up and down, they begin to think they are bosses. People start thinking that they have some kind of authority above the congregation, you find them gathered together, while singing and praying is going on, and keep talking. And I want to say that I found that problem here at Bethel, and it must stop! People from the back complained that while they are praying, singing and these doormen gather together and speak loudly. That is not your place, and I say again you are not bosses, you are servants! You may be talking about seating, you may be fixing your plans, but, you need to, go to a private place where you cannot disturb anybody in the House of God from praying, fix your business and come back.

And those kinds of taxi talk after you are finished parking cars, fellows talking loudly in the car park among you need to stop that. And I want that to stop here at Bethel this evening; you have no business doing that. From the time that music starts here, you have no business to interrupt anybody. You need to go aside, talk your business, come back there and continue to pray too with your eyes open. Keep your business on your mind, say your prayers, sing and worship the Lord. But what I think is happening is some pride involved.

I received reports, for months. This isn't a place for that. Wherever you are, be reverent. Go and talk your taxi talk elsewhere, talk politics elsewhere; this is the House of God. You need to be reverent in the House of God. If you, as an officer, will disturb a member, what do you leave for other believers to do? You ought to set the right example, any officer who is disturbing in the back there, I want you to bring a report to me, I want the officer's name, I want to know the group of them, and they will have come up right up here behind the pulpit and say why they are doing that. Yes sir! And let this correction be exported too. Bethel is not no hundred percent perfect. Bethel is not any better than anybody. We have our faults and let this stand there as a witness. What to do with them?" Kick out everyone of them that would not obey. That's the only solution, and to do that, pastor, you have got to have stamina. If you are kind of wishy-washy pastor and afraid to lose members, you will allow that in the House of God. But in my case, I will kick out all ten and preach to the benches if I have to preach to the benches

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