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PASTOR'S REPORT, May 14, 1979
Page• 25
You know, it's like the difference if I were to come to you and say, "May
I please borrow your car?" And you would say, "Well yes, that's OK. I'm
not going to use it. Here are the keys." But, wouldn't it be different
if I said, "Look, that is� car. That car belongs to me, not to you,
and I'm going to take it. I'm not going to give it bac�to you until
I'm good and ready." Now, would you give the keys to me under those
circumstances? Would you say, "Yes, okay: here are the keys. Fine.
Thank you, Ralph. Good-bye." Obviously you would have to draw a line
there. You would have no option. You would have no other way to go other
than to stand fast.
So I want to just bring that point home to you. But there is another
point to help explain to people why we can't. It comes down to the point
to where the state is saying that they are in control of all church
property. They are virtually saying that they can control all churches,
that we're a charitable trust, that the people of the State of California
own the property, and they are going to dictate and supervise everything
the church does. They say, "Oh, not the ecclesiastical; only all the
money." Well, tell me one thing that we can do ecclesiastically, virtually,
without money."
What pays for the PT? What pays for the booklets?
What pays the ministerial salaries? What pays the hall rents?
Obviously, if they are going to control the money, they are going to
control the church! Hence it really comes down to a very fundamental
principl� Either we're going to stand as free men under Christ, or
we're going to bow our knees as slaves, and we are going to become a
slave to the state. And the Bible tells me that I'm a free man, and
that I should not become a slave. And that's one reason why we
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re
fighting so hard--to keep from becoming a slave to the state.
Permit me to explain a few other scriptures. Some talk about turning the
other cheek. I know one minister that once turned the other cheek. He
got blasted right in the mouth, and he got knocked down. He stood up and
he turned the other cheek and he got blasted in the other cheek till he
was deaf in his ear. Now is that what that scripture literally means?
Or aren't we then really violators of the scripture that says our bodies
are the temple of the Holy Spirit and we should keep it whole and sound?
Mr. Armstrong has said for years we're not to be a floor mat, we're not
to be a slave. And that's the only thing we're trying to do here is
just preserve our liberties, not to try to wreak vengeance. We're not
trying to take vengeance on anybody. So we're not violating that
scripture. They talk about "love," but you know, isn't it fundamental
that love by itself has no meaning? How do the dissidents apply the one
word, "love"? They decide which way they want to go and they say that's
''love." Right? That's the way love is. "We don't take tithes because
that's not love." They don't want to pay tithes--hence it's not love.
And they ask: "Is that what Christ would do?" Of course, what would
Christ do in their minds? Whatever they want to do. If they want to do
it this way, that's what Christ would do. Hence, if you don
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t do that
too, you're not of Christ and you're not showing "love."
As Mr. Armstrong says, the fundamental fallacy in that is they didn't
look back into the Bible to find out what Christ did. There are certain
ways that dissidents misconstrue Scripture.
But to me there's one
scripture that they cannot misconstrue and that's the act of Christ when