A testimonial of the trials and tests that David had in the early days together with his little team before the Jesus Revolution began and the encouragement the Lord gave him about his future ministry reaching the hippies with the Gospel from Psalm 68.
THE TIME WAS ABOUT JANUARY, 1968. The place was Grandmother's little living room in her little cottage in California. And the little family was just visiting there from Texas. We had come about a month before, just before Christmas in fact, and we had come at her invitation and also in response to a prophecy the Lord had given way back in Florida the year before, in which He had said that when we returned from the Islands of the Rising Sun--the West Indies--with Grandmother, we were to pick up Simeon, the brother that had been left behind, which was Hosea and his Texas team, Caleb and Lydia and so on, and we were to go to the Land of the Setting Sun and "there shall be shown thee what thou shalt do." We had been delayed a long time in Texas, setting our house in order there so that we could be gone for some time, as we had a feeling that the Lord was going to use us in California, from what He said, as He had also prophesied in a motel in Dallas where we met Grandmother on the way before she flew on to California ahead of us. We had a feeling the Lord was going to open up some ministry, which He was obviously indicating, but had not revealed to us, as in Dallas He had spoken to us--that first tiny team--and He said that in the Northland He had said unto us, "Divide! Divide! Divide!"--that one team was to go to the Land of the South, which was Ho and his team to the Texas State Fair, and the other team with Grandmother, was to go on to a land which was "not thy own"--Canada!
THE LORD HAD EVEN NAMED THE TOWNS THAT WE WERE TO PASS THROUGH, and we ministered there at Expo 67, and then in New York, and then on Southward to Florida, and by revelation the team had gone to the West Indies "on the under waves rather than the upper waves"--by sea rather than by air, as some of you have heard us tell that miraculous story of "Ten Thousand Miles of Miracles".
THEN GRANDMOTHER HAD FLOWN ON TO TEXAS TO VISIT WITH FRIENDS, while we followed after her, and we met in this motel in Dallas for a final prayer meeting before she left for California by plane. There the Lord said, "Before I told you to divide: now I tell you to unite--all of you go--leave not one behind, for all of your gifts and all of your talents will be needed, and all of you will be needed for the new ministry that I am going to show to you in that Land of the Setting Sun."--which, of course, we immediately recognised as meaning California. So Grandmother had flown on, and the rest of us returned to the Ranch and prepared to leave for California!--But our preparations were considerably delayed and we were there for two or three months trying to wind up our affairs! Meanwhile, Grandmother was writing us, begging us to come help the hippies of Southern California, saying that in her particular beach town there was a coffeehouse run by church people, but they just didn't know how to reach the youth! She wanted us to come out and teach them to win souls and minister to the youth! So we had finally come just before Christmas in December, many months after leaving Florida!
BUT THERE WE SAT ON HER FLOOR IN HER LITTLE LIVING ROOM IN HER TINY COTTAGE, DEJECTED, DISCOURAGED, AND DEFEATED--a month or more after our arrival--with virtually no doors open to us, no church bookings for meetings, and almost no money--and there were about eight or ten of us trying to live in Grandmother's tiny three room cottage on a back alley. Nobody wanted a pitiful little group of teenage Texans--musical amateurs--when the churches of Southern California had all the top flight stellar celebrities of the Gospel entertainment world at their beck and call. We were absolutely nobody: they never heard of us; we belonged to nothing but the Lord, carried no credentials, no denominational ties, so only a few of Grandmother's friends had taken us in--and we had had bookings at about one or two churches, like Calvary Chapel and Brentwood Chapel, who had taken us just because Grandmother recommended us. We ministered to pitiful little handfuls of almost dead Christians!
FOR TWO YEARS NOW, WE HAD BEEN MINISTERING TO YOUTH ACROSS THE NATION, in parks, on the beach, etc--winning souls, with no place to send them or take them! It was like catching fish and then casting them back into the sea. It was pitiful and nearly broke our hearts! All we could do was to tell them to try to find some good church to go to which we knew wasn't enough!
BUT WE HAD BEEN USED TO GOING TO THE CHURCHES AT NIGHT TO TELL OF OUR MINISTRY to try to get them to go out and do the same, and also to get their support--the only way we knew of to get support, by holding meetings in churches and receiving offerings! We had no idea of how to get support any other way than by looking to church Christians through these meetings!
BUT IN CALIFORNIA, WE COULD GET ALMOST NO MEETINGS, so were virtually flat broke, and we'd been a month or more with Grandmother until she as actually supporting us on her small pension, at 82 years of age! We were so blue and discouraged we were about to give up and quit California and go back East where we had been better received, when, as we sat that evening on her little living room floor, the Lord again began to speak, to encourage our hearts and to show us the future and to tell us to be patient!
THE KIDS HAD CONTINUED TO WITNESS ON THE BEACHES, the streets, at the Rosebowl Parade, etc, but winning young people to the Lord was so discouraging when you had no fold for the sheep--no place to send them but to the damnable churches!
I'LL NEVER FORGET AFTER THE ROSEBOWL PARADE, AS WE SAT IN THE LOT THERE IN THE ARK, how we were already getting discouraged because the Lord had opened no place for us!--And the Lord spoke and said He was preparing a place for us, but it was not quite ready yet, and if we could just be patient and wait, He would open the door! Little did we dream that it was going to take six or seven months for the door to open, and that door would be the Club in Grandmother's own California beach hometown!
BUT WE WAITED AND WE WAITED AND WE KEPT BUSY FOR THE LORD witnessing, etc., with a few little meetings, which amounted to almost nothing! But still no door!--No new ministry!--And by this time it was either late January or early February! We were really discouraged!
BUT THAT NIGHT THE LORD BEGAN TO SPEAK! We had called a little prayer meeting together to inform Grandmother we were going to go back East--there was no ministry for us here! It all seemed so hopeless! And then the Lord spoke, Praise the lord! He said, "When you don't know where to go, sit still! When you're driving your car through a fog and it becomes so dense you can't see you don't just keep on driving:--you pull over to one side and wait--sit still until the fog lifts and you can see your way!" He said, "Be still and know that I am God, and I will soon reveal to you what you should do--that I am even now preparing the way!" Then He said, "Open your Bible and I am going to show you what I am going to do!"--And immediately Ho opened his Bible and this is the passage that the Lord gave us--the glorious prediction of our future ministry!-- Psalm 68 --on that desolate, discouraged night in the Winter of 1968!
VERSE 1--"LET GOD ARISE, LET HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED: let them also that hate him flee before him." God Himself was going to arise and defeat our enemies--the Devil and the forces of Satan that had so discouraged us--the churches that had rejected us--the Christians that had not listened!
VERSE 2--"AS SMOKE IS DRIVEN AWAY, SO DRIVE THEM AWAY: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God." Praise God! God was going to drive away the clouds and the smoke that now obscured our vision--the dense fog of frustration that we were in, and the Satanic forces that had bottled us up, and was going to deliver us and scatter them, PTL!
VERSE 3--"BUT LET THE RIGHTEOUS BE GLAD; let them rejoice before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice." We weren't to be down in the mouth and murmuring and discouraged. We were to praise the Lord and thank Him for the glorious victories of the future He was going to give us, by faith, even if we couldn't see them now. I'll never forget how that prayer meeting turned into a praise service when we finished this passage!
VERSE 4--"SING UNTO GOD, SING PRAISES TO HIS NAME: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him." God gets His greatest victories out of seeming defeat, and He often brings them along the neglected path of praise! When things look darkest, don't look down!--Look up! Don't murmur and complain!--Start praising the Lord, and you'll often praise your way right out of the pit into which the Devil is trying to cast you! The Lord loves praise: the High and the Holy One dwelleth in the praises of His people. The fragrance of the Lord is in the perfume of the praises of His Children! PTL!
VERSE 5--"A FATHER OF THE FATHERLESS, AND A JUDGE OF THE WIDOWS, IS GOD IN HIS HOLY HABITATION." Now God was beginning to give us a glimpse of what He was going to do with us in the near future--the ministry that He was about to give us. We really didn't comprehend it then, but now, as we look back, we realise what He was talking about! He was going to use us to show His compassion upon the Forsaken Generation--the Lost Generation--these poor little wandering sheep scattered and having no Shepherd--the Hippie Generation--the Unloved, Rejected, and Fatherless--the Orphans of the Spirit waiting for the Love of God!--A small beginning through us, which was to result in the present mounting wave of the mighty Jesus Movement amongst the youth of the world! Hallelujah! Praise God! The widows seem to symbolise the forsaken, the neglected, even those who are already Christians, but have no husband, no home--the true, sincere, Christians who have not found, but are looking for, the truth and God's true Way--but haven't found it in the church--that part of His Bride who are like widows without a home--the humblest in the land--the sincere--the seeking.
AND GOD HAS USED US WITH A FEW OF THESE, AND MANY OF THESE LITTLE WIDOWS OF ZAREPHATH ARE NOW SUPPORTING HIS WORK. In fact, it was a number of these small widows who, in the early days of this ministry, sent us their tiny gifts through the mail to support us, when the churches turned us out. It was the gifts of these widows that kept us going. Praise God! Nearly all of these gifts were from widows--some of them on pension and in rest homes--poorhouses! How many widows the Lord used to support us!
AT ANOTHER TIME THE LORD SAID SPECIFICALLY THAT THE WIDOWS OF ZAREPHATH WOULD FEED US. When we were in Texas in '67 at the beginning of that "Ten Thousand Miles of miracles" trip, the Lord told us our first step would be northward to go up to the help of the mighty--Ho and his little team in Wisconsin who were ministering at State Fairs in cooperation with the Christian Businessmen. The Lord said that Jonathan and his armourbearer had exposed themselves to the Philistines--the world--at those State Fairs, and that the Hebrews had come out of their holes in the rocks to mock them--the Hebrews--the religious system--so-called Christians--saying, "Who art thou, and from whence cometh thou, and what is thy doctrine?"--And indeed, at that very moment they were challenging him--because the Lord had told us in prophecy that if we were willing just to say, "The Lord hath sent us," and then even be willing to let someone else get the credit for our work--like the Jesus People--He would mightily use us!
SO THE LORD HAD SENT US TO HO'S HELP, saying, "Go up to the help of the mighty with reinforcements, for he is in need of thee!" We had had no idea in this world of going Northward with the Ark in the Fall of the year into the cold and possible snow--the last direction we would naturally have picked! And we had questioned the Lord, "But Lord, how will you feed us? How will we eat? They are only paying poor little Ho's team their expenses, and we're not even invited! They probably will even resent us coming--these church people", (which they later did). And the Lord said, "The widows of Zarephath shall feed thee there." Praise the Lord!
AND HOW MANY WIDOWS OF ZAREPHATH HAS THE LORD USED TO HELP US, LIKE HE DID THE PROPHET OF OLD! How many of them, themselves almost starving, have shared what little they had with us! And how mightily God has blessed them for it!
WE NEED TO MINISTER TO SOME OF THESE PEOPLE! What are we doing to feed them?
AND NOW, AS THE LORD LED US INTO OUR NEW MINISTRY WITH YOUTH IN CALIFORNIA, IT WAS INDEED THE WIDOWS WHO FED US THROUGH THE MAIL!--AND I KNOW GOD BLESSED THEM FOR IT! THERE WILL BE MANY SOULS IN HEAVEN AS A RESULT OF THEIR TINY INVESTMENTS IN GOD'S KINGDOM--THE WIDOW'S MITES THAT KEPT US GOING IN THOSE LEAN DAYS, WHICH LITERALLY KEPT US FROM STARVING IN THE MIDST OF FAMINE!
VERSE 6--"GOD SETTETH THE SOLITARY IN FAMILIES: He bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land." Surely this is exactly what God has done. He's placed these lonely youth in these colony families; He's liberated them from the chains of Satan's bondage. But the church people are still dwelling in the dry land of their own making, because of their rebellion against the truth!
VERSES 7 AND 8--"O GOD, WHEN THOU WENTEST FORTH BEFORE THY PEOPLE, when thou didst march through the wilderness; Selah: The earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God: even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel." The Lord was indicating He was going to march before us and lead us, and shake the earth at our tread--and truly they tremble at the thunder of our prophets and our mighty marches--the thunder of our rods, as God thunders His warnings at them through us, PTL!
VERSE 9--THOU, O GOD, DIDST SEND A PLENTIFUL RAIN, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary." This verse was surely for us! We, His inheritance, were so weary and discouraged, and so dry and in need of refreshing, when He began to pour out His Spirit and blessing upon us through our ministry to the neglected hippies and youth of California. I've never seen such an outpouring of His Spirit as we were soon to witness among the youth who began to be filled with His Spirit almost as fast as they were won, with many mighty manifestations and messages in that little group!
VERSE 10--"THY CONGREGATION HATH DWELT THEREIN: thou, O God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor." Even "congregation" sounded big then, to our little handful, but God was soon to show us how He was going to provide for many poor, through us--many poor, desolate young people--both spiritually and materially--and for us, too, in the process, who were now ourselves down to almost our last dime. "He who careth for the poor lendeth to the Lord, and surely He will repay."--And He certainly has!
VERSE 11--"THE LORD GAVE THE WORD: GREAT WAS THE COMPANY OF THOSE THAT PUBLISHED IT!" We knew we had the Message, but this verse nearly scared us! We were having a hard enough time just having faith for our little family, without caring for a whole company of publishers! I knew that this meant that there were going to be many, many more of us, and I really didn't want the responsibility, but I knew from this that God was going to give it to us whether we wanted it or not, Praise the Lord! And He certainly has, and this is only the beginning! In fact, there are a lot of great worldly companies even helping us publish it--some of the biggest newspapers in the world have carried our story--some of the greatest publishing companies, radio and TV stations, and the network companies, PTL!
VERSE 12--"KINGS OF ARMIES DID FLEE APACE: and she that tarried at home divided the spoil." I could see then, teams going out from home base all over the country, led by the kings of the Lord--you, His children, spreading the word throughout the land, while directed by the Lord in their exploits of spoiling the Egyptians of their most valuable spoil--their greatest riches-- their most precious treasures--the souls and lives of their young people.
VERSE 13--"THOUGH YE HAVE LIEN AMONG THE POTS, YET SHALL YE BE AS THE WINGS OF A DOVE COVERED WITH SILVER, and her feathers with yellow gold." Though we had been cast on the trash pile by the church, God was going to give us wings to mount to the Heavenlies in this new ministry--glory such as we had never known before--heights of ministry we had never imagined!
VERSE 14--"WHEN THE ALMIGHTY SCATTERED KINGS IN IT, IT WAS WHITE AS SNOW IN SALMON." So much of this we're just now beginning to understand, and really know what this verse means. But what did the Lord call "white"? The Harvest, right? He's scattering you kings amongst the land in the harvest fields, to reap it for His glory, Hallelujah!
VERSE 15--"THE HILL OF GOD IS AS THE HILL OF BASHAN; an high hill as the hill of Bashan." The hill of Bashan was the habitation of Og the giant. It was a mountain on the other side of the Jordan amongst their enemies. These hills represent governments. The hill of the Lord represents us, His people, His children. God is saying He's going to increase His hill just as high as the enemies' hill--as the governments of the world--a New Nation!--In fact, even greater than the mountains that oppose us! In a recent prophecy, He has even told us that we are the only nation on earth which He recognises, and all the rest are imposters and usurpers!--Because we are the Kingdom of God!
VERSE 16--WHY LEAP YE, YE HIGH HILLS? This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in; yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever." They are trying to leap up and exalt themselves, but we are the ones whom the Lord has exalted!
VERSE 17--"THE CHARIOTS OF GOD ARE TWENTY THOUSAND, EVEN THOUSANDS OF ANGELS: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place." Goodnight! Twenty thousand chariots! Jeth has enough problems with only twenty or thirty! This is only the beginning! Wouldn't that make some wagontrain--20,000 chariots! We're only getting started, Praise God! We're His angels, too--His angels on earth--His ministering spirits, His saints. In Daniel we're called the Host of Heaven! See also Rev. 22:8,9 .
VERSE 18--"THOU HAST ASCENDED ON HIGH, THOU HAST LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them." The recapturing of the captives. What rightfully belonged to Him, He's taken it back. The youth were captives of the Devil! Now God's recaptured them--those who were His Children before they were born--before the foundations of the world! "Thou hast received gifts for men"--of men. Or you might put it this way: "Thou hast received men for gifts--gifts that the Lord is most pleased with--the lives and hearts of men! There was always a glorious presentation of gifts before the conquering king. We God's victorious army, will lay at His feet--the feet of the Conquering King--the souls we have recaptured from the Enemy.
OR YOU MIGHT INTERPRET THIS as being the gifts of the Holy Spirit He has given us!
"THE REBELLIOUS ALSO"--We had predictions in Laurentide that through our ministry and the judgments of the Lord, the rebellious church is going to repent, and the Lord will have mercy and forgive!
VERSE 19--"BLESSED BE THE LORD, WHO DAILY LOADETH US WITH BENEFITS, even the God of our Salvation. Selah." From the moment we didn't get in churches any more, and couldn't get any offerings, the Lord began to supply from the most unexpected sources. It was amazing! The next thing that happened--I got a check in the mail for over $500, which was the most money I had had in a long time, from the insurance company in final payment of a claim that we had had in Hurricane Donna on the Florida Keys eight years before. The insurance company had gone bankrupt and into the receivership of the State, and the State was at last paying off these claims many years later. Therefore it was a very welcome and unexpected surprise. It was a miracle that it even reached me, because it was forwarded from our old address in Florida. Many times previously I had asked the Lord why the money didn't come, and He always seemed to say, "Don't worry: you'll get it when you need it most!" So it was a real token of encouragement that if we'd just go out and help the kids, He'd take care of us! It's so obvious that God has blessed and provided for us and loaded us with His benefits for our obedience to Him!
VERSE 20--"HE THAT IS OUR GOD IS THE GOD OF SALVATION; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death."--We preach the real message of Salvation-- total Salvation--body, mind, and spirit; and God has rescued these kids who came from the very gates of death and Hell. Like the kings of old, I dressed in rags and went down to spy out the land in the California beach town, in my beret and dark glasses, and I'd go down and peer in the window of this coffeehouse and I'd ask the kids going by, "What's going on in there?" And they'd answer, "Oh, just some kind of church for kids--a bunch of church people!" I went in the Club and got to know the situation. And I told my kids to go down and see what they could do at the Club!--And that's how it all started!
VERSE 21--"BUT GOD SHALL WOUND THE HEAD OF HIS ENEMIES, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses." In the original Hebrew, the word for Satan means literally "the hairy one", and we have had a lot of hairy experiences with that old boy since we began. But God's going to wreak vengeance on our enemies one of these days!
VERSE 22--"THE LORD SAID, I WILL BRING AGAIN FROM BASHAN, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea." Again the Lord is emphasising that He is recovering His Children from the captivity of the enemy. They belong to Him in the first place--but the Enemy, including these ungodly parents, had kidnapped them. They belonged to God and to us in the first place! It's these devilish parents that have kidnapped them from God--but God's now recapturing them from the Devil, and He's gathering them into His New Nation--the Nation that He recognises!
VERSE 23--"THAT THY FOOT MAY BE DIPPED IN THE BLOOD OF THINE ENEMIES, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same. "Even the angels in Heaven were crying out to the Lord, When are you going to avenge us? When are you going to clobber them, Lord? ( Rev. 6:10 )
VERSE 24--"THEY HAVE SEEN THY GOINGS, O GOD; even the goings of My God, my King, in the sanctuary." The whole world is watching what God is doing through us.
VERSE 25--"THE SINGERS WENT BEFORE, THE PLAYERS ON INSTRUMENTS FOLLOWED AFTER; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels." That sure is a picture of us with all our music and instruments and dancers and pretty girls! How about more tambourines, girls? It's Scriptural, Hallelujah! I know this was a literal prediction of what we were going to do, and I believe others are also, like He showed us in the New Nation Prophecy, and Ezekiel and others! Many of the prophecies of God have intermediate fulfillments, but they also have ultimate fulfillments; and I really believe with all my heart that we're the ultimate fulfillment of many of these prophecies. It's just like there are many types of Christ in the Bible, but only one final Messiah--many anti-Christs even in John's day, but there's only one final Anti-Christ. There are many peoples of God throughout history, but I believe with all my heart, that we are the final people of God--this generation--these Children of God! There's no time for any other! We are the ultimate fulfillment of many of these prophecies!--The Grand Finale!
VERSE 26--"BLESS YE GOD IN THE CONGREGATIONS, even the Lord, from the fountain of Israel." If there's anything we're famous for, it's praising God in the congregations!
VERSE 27--THERE IS LITTLE BENJAMIN WITH THEIR RULER, the prices of Judah and their council, the princes of Zebulon, and the princes of Naphtali." The Lord even knew we were going to use these old tribal names of which the tribes of Israel were only a weak forerunner and symbol! Even our little Benjaminites the Lord mentioned!
VERSE 28--"THY GOD HATH COMMANDED THY STRENGTH: strengthen, O God, that which thou has wrought for us." It is God that gives us the strength and God that has done it all! We are the work of God--the work of His fingers. Give Him all the glory! PTL!
VERSE 29--"BECAUSE OF THY TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM SHALL KINGS BRING PRESENTS UNTO THEE." We are the temple, and His Jerusalem! Because of His presence in us His people, kings are supporting us, and will even more in the future.
VERSE 30--"REBUKE THE COMPANY OF SPEARMEN, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till every one submit himself with pieces of silver: scatter thou the people that delight in war." God is rebuking the world and the System through us, and making them serve us with their material possessions. Use it!
VERSE 31--"PRINCES SHALL COME OUT OF EGYPT: Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." Each one of you young men is a prince unto God--a young King that He's taken out of Egypt, thank the Lord! And in another sense, God has given us some young people whom the world looked up to--princes in their eyes--by their standards! The black Ethiopians of this nation will also seek after the Lord in you. Hallelujah!
VERSE 32--"SING UNTO GOD, YE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH: O sing praises unto the Lord: Selah." If there's anything we're famous for, it's singing and praising unto the Lord! We're God's admonition to them that they better praise the Lord! They even sing and dance with us in the parks!
VERSE 33--"TO HIM THAT RIDETH UPON THE HEAVENS OF HEAVENS, WHICH WERE OF OLD; LO, HE DOTH SEND OUT HIS VOICE, and that a mighty voice." We're like His voice to the world, and a mighty voice!!
VERSE 34--"ASCRIBE YE STRENGTH UNTO GOD: His excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds." The Lord is our strength: our power is only in the Spirit! Hallelujah!
VERSE 35--"O GOD, THOU ART TERRIBLE OUT OF THY HOLY PLACES: the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto His people. Blessed be God!" We're a terrible and awesome representative of God to the world, because we come in the strength and power of the Lord--and they're terrified! They may make fun, but they're afraid! It's like laughing to conceal your embarrassment! They scoff to conceal their fear, because they know we're the voice of God!
AMEN! PRAISE YE THE LORD! The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad!--And there's much more to come!--Hallelujah!