HomeARC ML 0565
"CHANGE THE WORLD!"--MO January 5, 1977 GP No.565
Copyrighted January 1977 by the Children of God
1. THIS IS THE MORNING OF JANUARY 5, 1977, PRAISE THE LORD--THE BEGINNING WEEK OF A NEW YEAR! May it be a happy one for you all! Amen, thank You Lord! I was listening to BBC this morning about four o'clock and they had a short inspirational talk by the religious director of some area, and he told a very interesting story which I think I'll never forget, it was so appropriate as applied to what we are doing today!
2. HE TOLD THE STORY OF A WELL-KNOWN MAN WHO WAS TAKING A WALKING TOUR OF SOUTHERN FRANCE back in 1913 in the province of Provence (pronounced "Pro-vahnce"), an area well known for its migrant Gypsies for many years now. A walking tour, of course, most North Americans wouldn't understand because they don't walk--they just drive cars.
3. A WALKING TOUR IS WHERE YOU HIKE WITH A BACKPACK, sleeping bag and so on, and you just walk through beautiful countryside scenery, the back roads, the backwoods of an area where most people don't go.
4. YOU HIKE IN THE MOST BACKWOODSY SECTIONS of some country where sometimes there are not even roads for cars, there are only trails, and you stay in campsites provided by the government or with local farmers, or sometimes free or cheap youth hostels.
5. THIS IS SOMETHING KNOWN ONLY IN EUROPE--AMERICA HAS NOTHING LIKE THIS BECAUSE AMERICANS DON'T WALK. I remember reading about this sort of thing when I was young. I thought, "How wonderful!" You could walk or ride a bicycle throughout Europe and on a very small amount of money take long trips, stay very cheaply in these youth hostels and buy your meals very reasonably.
6. BUT SINCE ALL AMERICANS INCLUDING TEENAGERS HAVE AUTOMOBILES and lots of money, more money than most Europeans and more than is good for them, they wouldn't even think about taking a walking tour of anything. So you Americans probably won't understand what we're talking about, but the Europeans will.
7. I USED TO LOVE TO HIKE and it's a great sport, but it's very unusual for Americans to like hiking. As someone has said, the only exercise Americans get is climbing in and out of their automobiles. Because they can drive from their front door to the front door of the drive-in market or the drive-in bank or the drive-in theater or the drive-in church, or whatever.
8. BUT THIS STORY WAS IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS WHEN EUROPEANS STILL TOOK WALKING TOURS as many European young people still do today. This young man was about 20 years of age when taking this walking tour of Provence, a very rural area at that time in 1913, a rather barren desolate area too because it had been almost totally denuded of trees due to overcutting and too-intensive agriculture.
9. TREES ARE WHAT HELP TO HOLD THE MOISTURE AND SOIL OF THE LAND AND PROTECT IT from the sun and too much drying out. In an area where you have no trees you'll find the rains will soon wash away the soil, there'll be floods and it soon becomes barren like the famous "dust bowl" of Southwest U.S.
10. TO HAVE ANY KIND OF SUCCESSFUL AGRICULTURE THERE MUST ALSO BE TREES TO PROTECT THE EARTH and to shade it from the sun, protect it from the wind, hold the soil in place and to deter the rampaging rivers and their floods.
11. BUT THIS PROVINCE OF SOUTHERN FRANCE HAD BEEN ALMOST TOTALLY DENUDED OF TREES and had therefore become over-cultivated, over-farmed and the soil had washed away in floods and storms with no trees to hold it in place. It dried out and became barren and dry because of no trees to protect it from the sun. It was no longer being farmed very much.
12. EVEN THE WILDLIFE HAD FLED because wildlife too much have someplace to live and places of protected undergrowth. Without trees there's no undergrowth. Wildlife too must eat, and without trees there's no protection for the food that they must find. They too must drink, but when land has been denuded of trees and holds no water there are very few places to drink.
13. SO THIS YOUNG MAN WAS TAKING A WALKING TOUR THROUGH THIS RATHER DESOLATE BARREN AREA where there was little farming being done now because of its poor condition. The villages were old and rundown and tumbledown and in a state of disrepair, and the villagers had deserted the countryside because of its condition.
14. BUT HE STOPPED ONE NIGHT AT THE HUMBLE COTTAGE OF AN OLD SHEPHERD, a grey-haired man in his mid-fifties but very strong and stalwart yet, living in this tiny poor little cottage, but it was clean and simply furnished. He spent the night there enjoying the shepherd's kind hospitality. The young man was eventually to stay several days with him.
15. BUT HE OBSERVED WITH SOME CURIOSITY THAT THE SHEPHERD WAS SPENDING HIS EVENING HOURS BY LAMPLIGHT SORTING NUTS--acorns, hazelnuts, chestnuts, etc. He would very carefully and very seriously and soberly sort out these nuts and lay them down in a row and compare them and cull out the bad ones that he didn't think were suitable. When he would finally finish the evening's work he'd put them in a bag, a sort of knapsack.
16. THEN AS HE LED HIS SHEEP TO GRAZE THE NEXT DAY HE WOULD PLANT THESE NUTS ALONG THE WAY. He would take his shepherd's staff as his sheep were pasturing in one area, and with one eye on the sheep and one eye on what he was doing, he would walk along in a straight line for great distances within view of his sheep.
17. HE WOULD WALK FOR SEVERAL PACES and take his rod and thrust the end of it firmly into the earth making a hole several inches deep and drop in one of his nuts and cover it over with earth by his foot. Then he would walk several paces more, push his rod into the dry earth and drop in another nut. It was the same with acorns, chestnuts, hazel nuts and various other kinds of nuts from various kinds of trees.
18. HE SPENT ALL HIS DAYLIGHT HOURS WALKING FOR MILES over this entire area of Provence as he grazed his sheep, each day covering a different area planting these acorns and hazelnuts and chestnuts and various kinds of nuts from various kinds of trees in an area where there were no trees.
19. THE YOUNG MAN OF 20 WONDERED WHAT IN THE WORLD THIS MAN WAS TRYING TO DO. So he asked him, "What are you doing anyway?" And he told him, "Well, it's obvious what I'm doing: I'm planting trees." But the young visitor gasped, "Yes, but it will be years and years and years before these trees ever get to where they could do you any good!
20. "YOU MIGHT NOT EVEN LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE THEM GROW!" But the shepherd replied, "Yes, but some day they'll do somebody some good and they'll help to restore this dry land. I may never see it, but perhaps my children will see it."
21. SO THE YOUNG MAN MARVELLED AT THIS MAN'S FORESIGHT AND VISION AND UNSELFISHNESS that he was willing to prepare the land for future generations though he might never see the results or reap the benefits himself! He was sowing the seeds from which future trees would spring to protect the future land for future generations.
22. TWENTY YEARS LATER WHEN HE WAS IN HIS FORTIES our young hiker again visited this same area and was astounded at what he saw! This one great valley was totally covered with a beautiful natural forest of all kinds of trees! They were young trees of course, only 20 feet tall, but nevertheless trees.
23. LIFE HAD SPRUNG FORTH ALL OVER THE VALLEY! The grass had begun to grow much greener, the shrubbery, the bushes and berries, the wildlife etc., and the farmers were cultivating the land again, growing crops again, the soil was moist again, and it seemed like the whole area had suddenly sprung to life compared to the barren desolate waste that it had been when he had visited it 20 years previously.
24. HE WONDERED WHAT HAD EVER HAPPENED TO THE OLD SHEPHERD, and to his amazement he found that he was still alive! To a young man of 20, people in their 50's look like they're very old and ready to die, but the old shepherd was still alive, now about 75, and still hale and hearty, still there in his little cottage sorting his nuts!
25. OUR VISITOR THEN LEARNED THAT A DELEGATION OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES FROM PARIS, a large delegation of the deputies from the government of France, had come down recently to see this new forest of trees which to them looked like a new miraculous natural forest.
26. BUT IT HAD OVER THE YEARS BEEN PLANTED BY THIS ONE SHEPHERD, diligently day by day as he was watching his sheep he was planting his nuts, acorns, hazelnuts, chestnuts, etc. And now the whole valley, this whole area of the province was covered with beautiful young trees!
27. THE GOVERNMENT WAS SO IMPRESSED THAT THEY GAVE THE OLD SHEPHERD A STATE PENSION FOR HAVING REFORESTED THIS ENTIRE AREA SINGLE-HANDED! The young visitor who was now in his forties said he was amazed at the change, not only in the valley, in the beautiful trees, but also in the revived agriculture, the renewed wildlife, the birds, small animals, the verdure, the beautiful lush grass and shrubbery.
28. NOW THERE WERE THRIVING LITTLE FARMS and even the villages seemed to have come to new life! The villagers had fixed up their little houses and cottages and repainted things as though they had new hopes for the future, whereas many of the villages had previously been abandoned and things had been generally rundown and in terrible condition when he had visited there 20 years before.
29. BUT NOW ALL WAS THRIVING JUST BECAUSE OF ONE MAN'S FORESIGHT, ONE MAN'S DILIGENCE, one man's patience, one man's sacrifice, one man's faithfulness just to do what one man could do, day by day, day in and day out for a number of years. Our visitor later learned that when he first visited him as a young man of 20 he'd already been doing this patient planting for several years.
30. NOW THE TREES WERE GETTING TO BE BIG TREES, 20 FEET HIGH, 20 YEARS LATER! And the government was so impressed that they gave the old shepherd a state pension for the tremendously effective job that he had done single-handed in reforesting, and by this reviving, restoring life again to an entire area of the province of Provence.
31. ONE MAN MADE A WHOLE AREA COME ALIVE AND BE BEAUTIFUL AGAIN, restoring its economy, its wildlife, its agriculture, its water, its soil, and even its population! Its population had even grown because of the restoration of these trees.
32. SO THE GOVERNMENT WAS DULY IMPRESSED AND GRATEFUL TO HIM. They went back to the Chamber of Deputies or parliament of France in Paris and voted him a special pension for his tremendous faithful work over years and years of just what one man could do!
33. SO IF SOMETIMES YOU'RE DISCOURAGED WITH THE WORLD AND THE WAY IT IS, DON'T GIVE UP! We read that usually governments and armies and wars and great powers, great empires, change history and the face of the Earth. So sometimes we're discouraged and think, "Well, who am I? What can I do? It all seems so hopeless and impossible!
34. "IT LOOKS LIKE THERE'S NOTHING THAT ONE PERSON CAN DO TO CHANGE THINGS for the better, so what's the use of trying, what's the use of doing anything?"--And we're tempted to just give up and let the world go to hell, which it seems to deserve!
35. BUT AS PROVEN BY THIS HUMBLE SHEPHERD, OVER A PERIOD OF YEARS ONE MAN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD! You may not be able to change the whole world, but you can change your part of the world. This one shepherd, just through faithful diligent sacrificial hard work, day by day, day after day, year after year, totally changed an entire area of Southern France and restored it to life again!
36. IT REMINDS ME OF WHAT SOMEONE SAID TO US WHEN WE FIRST CAME HERE THREE YEARS AGO. A middle-aged local lady in her early 40's with her husband had heard about some of our rather radical and revolutionary ideas of love and faith and sharing and trying to change people in this country in which we were living, a very conservative country, ultra conservative, with hundreds of years of deeply-entrenched seemingly-unchangeable culture. She said,
37. "DON'T YOU THINK YOU'RE RATHER FOOLISH TRYING TO CHANGE THESE PEOPLE? They've been this way for hundreds and hundreds of years! You'll never change this town, you can't change this country--it's impossible! They'll never change! You're trying an impossible task! These people are so reserved and conservative and their culture is so ingrained in them that they will never change
38. "YOU CANNOT CHANGE THEM AND YOU'RE VERY FOOLISH TO EVEN TRY!" But I said, "Well, we may not be able to change the whole country, maybe we'll not even be able to change this one town, and certainly not all its citizens, but I know one thing:
39. WE'RE CHANGING A FEW OF THEM, ONE BY ONE, DAY BY DAY. Day after day and year after year we have been planting the seeds of the Truth and God's love in these hearts, and some of it is bound to spring forth into new lives, new trees! And I was thinking this morning, who knows?
40. SOMEDAY MAYBE THERE'LL BE A WHOLE NEW FOREST OF NEW LIVES HERE THAT WILL CHANGE THIS WHOLE CITY! Maybe we won't live to see it, maybe we won't be here to see it and benefit from it ourselves and enjoy it, but perhaps our children will, or their children will, and their city will and their country will!
41. IT MAY BE ONLY A SMALL PART OF ONE PROVINCE THAT WILL BENEFIT. We may not have changed the whole city or the whole country, much less the whole world, but we've changed a part of it.
42. MY DEAR, IF YOU HAVE CHANGED ONE LIFE YOU HAVE CHANGED A PART OF THE WORLD, AND YOU HAVE PROVEN THAT THERE IS HOPE THAT IT CAN ALL BE CHANGED! If one life can be changed it shows that there's a possibility that more lives can be changed and many lives can be changed and whole areas can be redeemed and the world can be changed, starting even with one person, just one person--maybe you!
43. SINCE WE CAME HERE ONLY THREE YEARS AGO, ONLY TWO OF US, WE HAVE CHANGED MANY! There are now nearly 70 of us engaged fulltime in planting new lives, and already over 150 new lives have sprung forth besides the 70!--Already there are 150 new trees, 150 new lives, new plants for the Lord!
44. SO NOW HERE THERE ARE OVER 220 OF US IN ONLY THREE YEARS' TIME WHERE THERE WERE ONLY TWO THREE YEARS AGO! It may seem like very slow, trying, painstaking work with so few results for all of our hard labours, but we are changing them!
45. WE'VE ALREADY BROUGHT IN MANY MORE NEW WORKERS, new labourers to plant more seeds from which already 150-some new live saplings have sprung--new hearts, new hopes, new spirits, changed minds and a whole new generation of changed lives, a whole new forest of new trees for the Lord to save the land!
46. YOU MAY SAY, "WELL, BUT YOU'RE NOT CHANGING THE WORLD!" Well, only two people came here at first, but we're beginning to change our part of the world! Not only are there 70 of us here working now instead of two, but 150 more souls won for Christ are also witnessing, also planting seeds from which more new trees will grow!
47. THE NEWS OF THIS HAS ALSO SPREAD ABROAD THROUGHOUT THE LAND, even on national radio and TV, so that our work here has become the talk of this whole area! In fact we are not only the talk of this province but of the neighbouring province as well, and even clear across the land in far distant places we've heard that we're the subject of controversy, the subject of conversation and discussions by important men at big conventions!
48. EVERYBODY IS TALKING ABOUT US, everybody is talking about what we're doing, everybody is talking about our work, everybody is talking about what we believe, what we teach, what we practice!
49. IT'S TRUE THAT MANY ARE TALKING AGAINST US, BUT AT LEAST THEY'RE TALKING, and the more they talk the more they advertise our way, even as the Apostle Paul said, "Even if it be the Christ of contention" and controversy! "Nevertheless the Gospel is preached" even if it be preached in contempt by our enemies who speak against us! (Phil.l:16-18.)
50. TO SPEAK AGAINST US THEY HAVE TO TELL WHAT WE BELIEVE and what we preach and what we practice, even if they speak in criticism and scepticism. What can a little handful of people do?
51. WHAT CAN ONE COUPLE DO who first came here when there was none other and this seemed to be a hard, cold, impossible field under the strictest kind of culture and customs and religion long opposing for hundreds of years any change?
52. WELL, WE BEGAN WITH ONE AND TWO AND THREE AND FOUR AND SO ON PLANTING THE SEEDS of the truth of God's Word and the Gospel and Christ's love, and now we have already changed over 150, now there are 70 doing the same work, and the area and our work here in changing lives and planting new lives is virtually exploding!
53. NOW ANY CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES COULD COME AND LOOK AND SEE THAT THERE'S A STRONG GROWING YOUNG NEW FOREST OF TREES HERE! So it's working, it's working! (Maria: The Lord said that what we do here would not only be heard here and in the neighbouring places, but all around the world!) Amen!
54. WHAT WE ARE ACCOMPLISHING HERE, WHAT JUST TWO PEOPLE BEGAN, IS ALREADY BEGINNING TO ECHO AROUND THE WORLD! God promised that it would be heard of around the world! And it has been already through our Letters to you in over 70 countries on every continent throughout the globe! The thousands of you reading this Letter out there are right now hearing about what we're doing here, what we're accomplishing!
55. ALTHOUGH IT SEEMED LIKE AN IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION IN THE LEAST LIKELY COUNTRY that you could possibly imagine, desolate and barren spiritually, with a dried up, hard, brittle, unchangeable culture and customs, we're doing it!
56. WE DIDN'T TRY TO CHANGE THEM ALL AT ONCE--we couldn't.--But we've just worked slowly, patiently, heart by heart, life by life, little empty hole by hole, seed by seed, with patient tender gentle loving care, day by day, life by life, year by year.
57. AND NOW EVERYONE IS BEGINNING TO SEE THE RESULTS and everyone is talking about it and they are changing! Even a prominent physician of the city who has been quite sceptical about our efforts here spiritually, confessed that we were having a tremendous influence and impact on the city, everybody was talking about it, and that we were really affecting this town. He confessed:
58. "YOU WERE NEEDED HERE--OUR CITY HAS NEEDED THIS SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE FOR A LONG TIME. We're rich, we have money, we have everything else here to be thankful for. But we have not had the spiritual influence that you have had and that you have brought here, and it's very needed." An enemy even said, "The news here is the Family!"
59. WE HAVE AFFECTED THIS CITY, WE HAVE INFLUENCED THIS TOWN. Not everybody has been saved, not everybody has been born again, but nearly everyone has had the witness, nearly everyone has had the testimony, nearly everyone has heard the message.
60. MANY HAVE COME AND SAMPLED THE LOVE AND THE TRUTH that we are giving out, little by little, day by day, person by person, heart by heart, hole by hole, seed by seed.
61. NOW A WHOLE NEW YOUNG FOREST OF TREES IS BEGINNING TO GROW and beginning to be seen and evidenced and manifest, so that people are beginning to talk about it and marvel!
62. YOU SAY WE CAN'T CHANGE THE WORLD? It's too late, too bad, too big, too difficult? Well, why don't you just try changing your part of the world?
63. WHY DON'T YOU START WITH YOU, your own heart, your own mind, your own spirit, your own life. If you even change your life you've changed a whole universe, the universe of your body, and the sphere in which you live. The place and the very atmosphere around you will be changed if even you change yourself by the power of God's love!
64. CHANGE NOT ONLY YOUR OWN LIFE BUT THOSE OF YOUR OWN FAMILY, of your home. You'll have a new home, a new family, with new lives, new minds, new hearts, new spirits, filled with the truth and the love of God, the life of God, the Word of God.
65. A WHOLE HOME HAS BEEN CHANGED, AND THAT'S A WHOLE WORLD, YOUR WORLD! CHANGE THE WORLD in which you live, your life, your home, your family, and you've changed the world, your world! Then your little family can start trying to change the neighbours next door and your playmates, business associates, social associates, schoolmates, tradesmen, visitors, the people you contact from day to day just the way we do.
66. YOU CAN GO OUT AND MAKE A SPECIAL EFFORT DAY OR NIGHT TO REACH LONELY HUNGRY NEEDY HEARTS in the places where they gather for recreation, solace, comfort and entertainment, seeking love, seeking truth, seeking something they know not what, but seeking happiness, desperately seeking to satisfy their longing yearning hearts that are so empty and so barren and so desolate for lack of the water of the Word, for lack of the warm love of God.
67. YOU CAN START INDIVIDUALLY, PERSONALLY, JUST YOU, ONLY YOU, maybe only your little family, just planting seeds, one by one, in heart by heart, day by day, night by night, or perhaps piece of literature by piece of literature all day long on the street, on the street corner or under doors, at homes, wherever you may be.
68. DAY BY DAY CONSTANTLY FAITHFULLY DILIGENTLY PATIENTLY PLANT SEED BY SEED, HEART BY HEART, LIFE BY LIFE, EMPTY HOLE BY EMPTY HOLE, dropping that little seed of the truth of God's Word into that empty hole of an empty heart, then covering it up with the loving warmth of God's love and trusting God's Spirit, God's great warm loving sunshine of His Love and the water of His Word to bring forth the miracle of new life!
69. IT MAY SEEM ONLY A TINY LITTLE BUD AT FIRST, just a little sprig, just one insignificant little green shoot. What is that to a great and mighty land? What is that to the forest that's needed? Well, it's a beginning.
70. IT'S THE BEGINNING OF THE MIRACLE OF NEW LIFE and it will thrive and grow and grow and become great and strong into a whole new tree, a whole new life, and maybe a whole new world! So why not try it?
71. YOU SAY YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE WORLD?--WELL, WHY DON'T YOU TRY? Why don't you try changing your part of the world, change your world, the world of your own life--your family, your home, your neighbours, your town, and let's just see what might happen! Well, I'll tell you something more:
72. I STARTED DOING THAT SOME YEARS AGO. ONE TINY MAN did what he could to plant the seeds of life of the truth of God's Word and the love of Christ in the hearts of just his four children, my four children.
73. AND THEN FOUR LITTLE KIDS IN TURN LEARNED TO SING AND QUOTE SCRIPTURES even when they were tiny and small, on street corners, in restaurants, in the parks, campgrounds, playgrounds, school grounds, anywhere, everywhere.
74. TIME SQUARE NEW YORK, BROADWAY, LOS ANGELES, MIAMI FLORIDA, PITTSBURGH, CHICAGO, EVERYWHERE WE TRAVELLED WE PLANTED THOSE SEEDS in the heart of others. And by and by, especially in California amongst the hippies, those seeds began to grow in empty holes--open receptive hungry hearts--until there was a whole new forest of nearly 100 trees!
75. IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE MUCH BUT IT CREATED SUCH A SENSATION WE WERE HEADLINES in the local newspapers and then finally in the big city newspaper, and finally even New York had heard about us! Even in one little patch of less than a hundred new trees, something was happening, something was growing, something new was being created, life was beginning again!
76. AND WE BEGAN TO TRAVEL, WE BEGAN TO TRANSPLANT THOSE TREES TO OTHER AREAS and more trees began to spring up from the seeds of those trees, and now beloved, you say it can't be done?
77. WE HAVE SCATTERED SEEDS NOW IN OVER 70 COUNTRIES ON EVERY CONTINENT THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE GLOBE AND THERE ARE NOW THOUSANDS OF US IN HUNDREDS OF LITTLE FORESTS ALL OVER THE WORLD WITH MILLIONS MORE FOLLOWING US! If this can happen in only nine short years, what can happen in another nine? This year now, 1977, is only the beginning of the tenth year. If in only these short years we can already have such a forest of thousands of trees in hundred of forests in over 70 countries around the whole world, I would say there is some possibility of changing the world!
78. WE ARE NOT GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD, WE ARE ALREADY CHANGING THE WORLD! We are changing each little world in which we live, the world of our own lives and the world of our own little families and the world of our own little homes.--And already we have Colonies of our children everywhere around the Globe who are planting constantly, continuously, day after day, night after night, heart by heart, life by life, new seeds, everywhere they go. I believe, given a little more time and a little more opportunity, a little more growth, that
79. WE ARE GOING TO SEE ONE GIGANTIC MIGHTY FOREST OF MILLIONS OF BRAND NEW BEAUTIFUL GROWING THRIVING STRONG TREES SPRINGING UP ALL OVER THE WORLD, everywhere, to revive the land, to save the world, to protect it, redeem it, save the soil, retain the water, and totally restore the areas in which we live to new life, new spiritual life and a new thriving economy in thousands of forests with millions of trees making a new world wherever we are! You say, "What's the use, I can't do anything, I'm only one person, who am I?" Let me tell you, Beloved!
80. YOU CAN BEGIN TODAY TO CHANGE THE WORLD! Some of you already have. Some of you already have changed a great deal of the world, the world of your own life, your own family, your own home, the lives and families and homes of others around you, your community, your town, and the countries to which you have gone, town by town, city by city, you've planted the seed.
81. LIKE THE FAMOUS JOHNNY APPLESEED OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE EARLY PIONEER DAYS who used to always plant his apple cores--whenever he ate an apple he'd plant the apple core. And they say in New England from Johnny Appleseed's efforts apple trees sprang up all over New England and are still being enjoyed today by succeeding generations!
82. YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE WORLD?--OH YES YOU CAN!--AND WE'RE CHANGING IT! You are changing it if you're doing what we're doing and have been doing for only a few short years. We are changing the world! Praise God! Thank You Jesus!
83. AND IF YOU'RE FAITHFUL LIKE THE OLD SHEPHERD that the government finally rewarded for his efforts, God is going to reward you one of these days when you come finally to your reward. He's going to say, "Well done thou good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of Thy Lord!"
84. YOU MAY NOT HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SUCCESSFUL, BUT YOU WERE FAITHFUL. You may not have always been a big shot or somebody important, but you were a good and faithful servant, you served Him and you served Him well and you did a good job faithfully.
85. YOU DID WHAT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO DO, DAY BY DAY, HOLE BY HOLE, HEART BY HEART, YOU PLANTED THE SEED and you're bound to reap a harvest! It may not all grow. The Enemy may snatch away some of it, some may fall on hard stoney ground. Some may be shallow and wither away under persecution and trial, and some may be choked out by the cares and riches of this world.
86. BUT SOME IS BOUND TO FALL ON GOOD GROUND AND BRING A GOOD HARVEST, some thirty-fold, some sixty-fold, and some an hundred-fold to make up for all the losses, so that you have really changed the world! I believe it, Beloved!
87. WE NOT ONLY CAN CHANGE THE WORLD BUT WE ARE CHANGING THE WORLD AND WE HAVE CHANGED THE WORLD! I know this much: I have changed the world in which I live! Are you changing yours? God bless you! Amen! Praise the Lord! Oh, I forgot to tell you something very important! You remember how the young man told the old shepherd,
88. "BUT YOU'LL NEVER LIVE TO SEE IT, you'll never benefit from it! You'll probably never even live to see if you accomplished anything or not!"
89. WELL, THE OLD SHEPHERD LIVED TO BE 89 YEARS OF AGE AND DIDN'T DIE UNTIL 1947, SO HE LIVED TO SEE HIS FOREST FULL GROWN AND BEAUTIFUL, AND A WHOLE TOTALLY CHANGED PROVINCE OF PROVENCE! He lived to see that he had changed his world, and God blessed him with seeing the reward of all his hard labours. He lived to see what God had done through him! So who knows?
90. YOU MAY LIVE TO SEE THE DAY WHEN THE WORLD IS CHANGED AND WAS CHANGED THROUGH YOU, AND I BELIEVE IT! I know it!--Because God's Word says so! Amen? Praise God! We not only are changing the world, but we have changed it and it is going to be changed!--And in the spirit, if not in the flesh, we will all live to see the day when we have changed the world, praise God! God bless you! Amen!
91. ARE YOU CHANGING YOURS TODAY? "Be not weary in well doing", Beloved, "for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not." (Gal.6:9.) Change the world! Hallelujah! Only last night Maria was commenting on her conversation with a local prominent musician who said to her,
92. "YOU'RE CHANGING ME, YOU'VE CHANGED MY LIFE, YOU'VE CHANGED ME!" And she spoke to me wonderingly saying, "How could I have changed him?--I've only talked to him a few minutes a few different times! How could I have had that much effect in such a short time?"
93. SUDDENLY THERE CAME TO MY MEMORY A VISIT WE MADE TO THE RUSSIAN EXHIBIT at the Montreal World's Fair when my mother was 80 years of age and I was just a young man. We entered the entrance and suddenly for some reason the local director of the exhibit, a tall fine clean-cut blond-haired good-looking young Russian leaped forward and offered a wheel chair to this dear old lady, my mother!
94. THEN ON TOP OF IT HE HIMSELF VOLUNTEERED TO PUSH HER AROUND THE EXHIBIT and show her things and explain them to her, so they became quite interested in each other and became deep in conversation while I wandered off looking at other things that I was interested in, all the mechanical exhibits and the laser beams and the new inventions and spaceships of Russia and so on.
95.MEANWHILE HE AND MOTHER SPENT NEARLY TWO HOURS IN INTENSE CONVERSATION as he pushed her about the Exhibit showing her various new gadgets. But apparently they talked about a lot more than just mechanical gadgets, because he bade us at the end of two hours a fond farewell and said, "Please come again!" and was very very cordial and hospitable and lovely and seemed very fond of mother.
96. A FEW WEEKS LATER WE RECEIVED A LETTER in which he said, "You have changed my life! I have received Christ as you suggested. You have changed my whole way of thinking, my way of believing, you have changed me! But I have a wife and three children and I am living in a communist society that is against religion, so now what do I do?"
97. WELL, HER ADVICE TO THAT YOUNG MAN IN ESSENCE WAS: CHANGE THE WORLD! Change the world you're living in! Start now! Be a faithful witness and a testimony to what has happened to you where you are, what God has done for you, what His love and His truth have done for you personally, and you can start changing your part of the world, even a communist world!
98. "THROUGH ONE MAN'S OBEDIENCE MANY WERE MADE RIGHTEOUS!" (Romans 5:19) I began to obey the Lord fully, to give Him my whole heart and life when I was only 19 years of age. Today nearly one-and-a-half-million people have been changed because of that!--Those whom we have all led to the Lord around the world!
99. NOT JUST THE 7,000 FULLTIME WORKERS, FULLTIME MISSIONARIES FOR GOD IN 71 COUNTRIES, BUT NEARLY ONE-AND-A-HALF-MILLION SOULS HAVE ALREADY BEEN SAVED THROUGH OUR WITNESS! Through the witness of ourselves, everyone of us, and the seeds that we have sown in the way of literature, the truth of God, the Words of God and the Love of God around the world we have changed nearly one-and-a-half-million lives! Think of that! That's a pretty big forest!
100. WELL, THAT'S A PRETTY BIG HUNK OF THE WORLD if you ask me! And it was all started just by one man only nine years ago! We have changed in only nine years nearly a million-and-a-half of the world!
101. CHANGE THE WORLD! START TODAY! CHANGE YOUR OWN LIFE, change your family, change your home, change your neighbours, change your town, change your country! CHANGE THE WORLD!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family}
