P.O. Box 640109

El Paso, TX 79904

14 February, 1999

Dear Children,

Now what better way to start off this week’s sermonet than with an honest to goodness real life confession? So just what do you think I’m a gonna fess up to? Well the truth of the matter is that it was somewhere on into Thursday night that I got call from Brother Roger. And it was only after hearing the first few words out of his mouth that I was able to very quickly figure out that he meant business. You see I knew by the sound of his voice, without a doubt in my mind, that whatever it was that he had on his mind was very serious. And as he continued on talking, I very quickly picked up on the fact that this discussion was heading right on into a mini investigation of the February 7th sermonet.

You see what Brother Roger picked up on (that likewise, might I add, no one else seemed to catch) was that I had made a mistake in copying the Scripture. Because since the beginning of this sermonet series on The Sin Of Amway I have continued (over and over again) to write Luke chapter 1, verse 1, in error. The words of Jesus (as written in the King James Version of the Holy Bible) are really "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy", but I wrote them as "Beware ye of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy". So do you kinda like see the difference?

Well the difference is that I left out the words "of the leaven"... and of course those words were a very important part of the message... because they were the Holy Ghost inspired words that Jesus spoke... and they definitely shouldn’t have been left out in the first place. But the facts are that I did! I left them out, I changed the meaning of God’s Word, but I didn’t do it on purpose. And the one thing that I have continued to pray about, since the time that Brother Roger made me aware of this very serious error, was "why didn’t You tell me about it Lord?"

You see I am a born again child of God and therefore the Spirit of God is a very real part of me. And likewise it’s this same Spirit Who gives me the messages that I write each and almost every week of my life. So if He already has established this open line of communication between Himself and me, then why didn’t He just go ahead and correct me on my error? "Why didn’t You tell me about it Lord?"

Well that’s what I’ve been praying since Thursday night... and the following is the answer that I feel the Lord has laid out on my heart. You see the reason that I believe the Lord allowed me to make the mistake that I made was for two very good reasons. First of all I believe He allowed it for the purpose of developing Brother Roger for this job that he has been called to do. Because without a doubt the Lord has chosen him to serve as a pretty important part of this ministry. And although Brother Roger might not even know it yet, one of his FMH Children’s Club Ministry duties is to see to it that I stay right on track with the Word of God. And as I hope you can see by now, he did one mighty fine job of it this past week. So please let me extend a great big "Thank You" for Brother Roger.

OK, so that was one of the reason that I believe the Lord allowed me to make this copying error, but what do you figure was the second? Well I truly feel that the number two reason that God the Father allowed this to happen was just so that we could dig a little deeper into the exact meaning of what Jesus was saying. Because you see it is so very important that this message from the Lord not only gets delivered to the people of Amway but that they also understand it without a shadow of a doubt. This message is important... because their everlasting lives depend on it!!!

All right, so as we continue on with part IV of our sermonet series on The Sin Of Amway let’s make just a very slight course correction. Instead of charging on ahead into verse 11 of Luke chapter 12, let’s go back to verse 1 and kinda like just bog it on down in that one spot. So once again, reading from the Word of God, "In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he (Jesus) began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."

Now first of all, if any of us (including me) had really gotten down deep into these most recent messages ("Beware ye of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy"), I think that it would have become abundantly clear that my error was an error. Because you see the word "hypocrisy" is that thing which causes a hypocrite to be a hypocrite. You just flat out can’t be a hypocrite unless you have first been cursed with the curse of hypocrisy. And of course as Jesus said, it was this "leaven of the Pharisees" that was the "curse of hypocrisy". So in an effort to help you understand what this leaven of the Pharisees was all about, let’s flip back to the sermonet dated 2-24-99 and read once again from the Words Of The Spirit: "I speak unto thee this day concerning, dead matter, for I say that I desire a living people and I say because I am the living God I desire a living people. I say I do not desire that my people would feed off of dead matter, for I would say that dead matter shall only bring forth death, and I say that those who shall eat of the same, shall not live, but they shall die."

So just what is this dead rotting matter that the Words Of The Spirit was talking about? Well I know that this is going to be a shock to just a few of you, but this dead rotting matter that the Lord was talking about was none other than this thing called religion! Now I’m pretty sure that what I’ve just said is kinda hard for some of you to understand, so let me put it to you in simple terms. The very basic recipe for cooking up some of this not too pleasant smelling religion is as follows: take 99.9999 % of the Word of God and mix it with .0001 % of the word of man (a microscopic amount of leaven), stir it up well, and then sit back for a short spell and wait. Because it won’t be too very awful long after that this once magnificent and beautiful Word of God becomes a swollen rotting maggot infested denomination of the Pharisees... and of course it’s only that itty bitty little speck of the word of man (leaven) that caused it.

So even though you can’t be "Beware ye of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" you can be "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy". And that’s exactly the point that we need to continually stress with the religion of Amway (Mr. Rich DeVos and family), and the religion of the Baptist (Dr. Charles Stanley), and the religions of the rest. But even though these two men (amongst the many others) have been overcome by "the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy", they themselves are not the leaven. They are only the people who are believing a lie (the word of man; leaven), and likewise spreading the lie. And of course, due to the gigantic influence that these men have on the world, what they believe in is important... because a whole lot more of God’s very own chosen people could end up eating the stinking rotting meat of their religion.

And that’s right about at the point where this thing about "blasphemy" comes into play. Because you see it ain’t no doubt in my mind that The Good Lord wants both of these men (and a whole lot more of them for that matter... which even includes Mr. Pat Robertson) to get out of their religions and get back on track with God. And I’m sure that’s exactly what He’s been trying to tell them... but they just flat out refuse to listen! And of course this all follows right along with the message that the Lord has been preparing for this series on The Sin Of Amway... which applies to the series on The President, The People, And The Religion... which just so happens to be all about the practice of continuing in sin even after the Holy Spirit tells you that it’s a sin (blasphemy: resisting the convicting power of the Holy Spirit unto repentance).

Now there’s just one very important point that we need to make perfectly clear before we go any further with this message... so please listen up. The sin of blasphemy can either be pardonable or unpardonable. In other words God might let one sin of blasphemy go on for a short period of time while yet another sin of blasphemy He might not. So for the person who commits the unpardonable sin of blasphemy it’s like what you might consider in the eyes of God "the very last straw." I mean there’s absolutely no "ifs, ands, or buts about it"!!! Because at the exact time that the unpardonable sin gets committed, that person has just lost all chances (forever and ever and ever) of making it into the Kingdom of God (not even a snowball’s chance in Hell).

So how does anyone know when the pardonable sin of blasphemy suddenly turns into the unpardonable sin of blasphemy? Well the answer to that one can be summed up in a very few words: forget it and don’t even consider it! You see there are certain things that God the Father just ain’t a gonna let us know about... and it just so happens that this is one more of them. Because you see if we all knew just how far we could push Father God before He finally said "enough is enough", then I think I would be safe to say that there would be a whole lot of people purposefully taking it right on out to the limit. And of course it should be very easy to understand that "a spoiled brat" attitude is not the way Father God expects His children to be.

Now this is probably as good a time as ever to go ahead and give you a real good real life example of this phenomenon we have been discussing (pardonable Vs unpardonable sin of blasphemy). You see it was a few weeks ago that I discovered to my horror that someone had given my beautiful little Toyota pick-um-up truck a pretty good blow to the front bumper. And seeing how this now lopsided bumper made my beautiful little truck look sorta shabby, I decided to go ahead and take the time to fix it. That’s what I was going to do until Father God told me to get someone else to do the job... and of course He knew the perfect person to take care of it.

OK, so God the Father told me the perfect place to get my bumper fixed... but I just kept on putting it off... until Friday a week ago when He finally said "do it today!" And needless to say I got the message real quick! So the message was that after work I would stop by this automotive shop and ask some man (whom I didn’t even know yet) if he could take care of my bumper. But of course that wasn’t all of the story because God the Father had clued me into one more good reason why I should be doing what I was doing. You see Father God wanted me to be a witness to this man who I had never met before but who I was going to meet very shortly. You see not only was I going to get my bumper fixed, but this bumper fixing man was likewise going to get himself fixed... by God.

So Friday afternoon I followed orders and headed on down to the local fix-it shop. I drove up... the man came out... I showed him the bumper... and he said he could take care of the problem... but he couldn’t do it right then. And seeing how it was the weekend, he said that I’d just have to come back on Monday. So the plan was that Monday I would stop by the shop and this man would then take me on into work. What a perfect plan! Because you see it was going to be during this short drive to my work that I would have the opportunity to tell this man whatever the Lord would have me to tell him.

That was the plan but all did not go too well. Because it was Monday at the fix-it shop that I got the same reply I had gotten just a few days earlier; "I’m too busy today, come back tomorrow." So I left with every good intention of doing exactly what the fix-it man had requested. I was going to do what God the Father had called me to do even if it meant that I had to try it again the next day. And those were my plans until I got home. Because as I was taking my shower that night the Lord told me to call it all off. He didn’t want me going back to that fix-it shop... and He didn’t want me witnessing to that man... and that was the end of that!

So what do you figure this little incident was all about? Well this was nothing less than a real life example of someone who had an opportunity to not only hear from Spirit of God (as spoken through me), but also be convicted of his sins. And of course this conviction of his sin could have lead to the confession of his sins which could have resulted in the forgiveness of his sins. That was the opportunity he had... until his time ran out. One day the sin of blasphemy was pardonable... until that day when it wasn’t. Think about it!

Now after having said all of that, I’d like to go back a few years in time to that very first message that the Lord gave us to give to Amway. Because the story that God the Father gave to us to give to them is found in the book of Numbers. And reading from chapter 22, starting with verse 1, "And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho. And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel. And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time."

Now in order for you to understand what’s going down in this story, just consider this fellow Balak as being Old Splitfoot himself... and even though he ain’t, he is a perfect example of who he is (Satan). Because you see the children of Israel were on their way to God’s promised land... and God was taking real good care of them... and Old Balak just couldn’t stand it. The nation of Israel was on a roll... because God was on their side... and everyone else (including Satan) knew it. So Balak was in a bind. The power of God was on the nation of Israel and they were about ready to become a steam roller right on over him.

But all was not lost... because he had a plan: "He (Balak) sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me: Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed. And the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand; and they came unto Balaam, and spake unto him the words of Balak."

You see Satan ain’t no dummy. He knows the power of God and likewise he will do everything possible to get the child of God to use the power of God to do his very own dirty work. And that’s why it’s so very important that we as the children of God not only hear the Spirit of God but also obey the Spirit of God. And continuing on with this story of Balaam we will see just how very persistent Old Splitfoot can be: "And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee?... And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the Lord refuseth to give me leave to go with you. And the princes of Moab rose up, and they went unto Balak, and said, Balaam refuseth to come with us. And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they. And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me: For I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people."

So do you see what I mean? Satan will throw out whatever temptations necessary in order to get the child of God to become deaf to the voice of God... and fame and fortune are only two of them. So did Balaam take the bait?... did he bite the hook? Well let’s continue on with the story and see for ourselves: "And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass... And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way... And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee... Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand... And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me: And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive."

Now you’ll just have to admit to the fact that Satan (Balak) did a pretty good job on Balaam. I mean talk about being possessed. Not only had Balaam lost his spiritual ability to hear from God but he also lost his spiritual ability to see God too. And as I hope you can see by now, it was through his continued disobedience to God Almighty (blasphemy) that He finally lost total communications with the Spirit of God. He was as lost as a white goose in a snowstorm... until his donkey saved his life. But sad to say his donkey couldn’t save him forever. Because picking up the story after Balaam finally did the dirty deed against God’s chosen people, reading on into Numbers chapter 31, "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites... And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain... Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword."

So this was the story of Balaam... who had some very special gifts from God... and Balak (Satan) wanted to use both him (Balaam) and them (God’s special gifts) to destroy God’s chosen people. That was Satan’s plan and likewise God tried His best to help Balaam resist Satan’s temptations... but Balaam resisted God’s help... and he continued resisting right on up until the very end. Now this was a story about blaspheming God... and it was also God’s very own choice of real life Bible stories for Amway. And he gave it to me to give to them... because the Christians at Amway are following in the path of Balaam... and blaspheming God Almighty.

In fact while we are still on this subject, let’s turn to and read from the book of Jude, "...Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."

So who do you think Jude was talking about? Was he talking about Amway? Well the answer to that question is both no and yes. And the reason that I say that is because of the fact that way back in history, back in the days of Jude, the Amway Corporation hadn’t even been thought of yet... but then again it really had. Because you see it’s these same spirits of darkness ("For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation..."), that have been around since the very early times of Satan, that are likewise now becoming "the spirits of Amway".

And it’s these same spirits in Amway that are causing the exact same spiritual darkness that Jude was talking about so many years ago. And of course the one and only purpose of these spirits of Satan is to destroy the children of God: "I will therefore put you in rememberence, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not... Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities... Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core... These are... Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever."

If only the Lord would give me the time, I could write an entire book comparing this Scripture to the real life everyday business practices of Amway. It’s absolutely incredible how these Words of God fit the Amway corporation to a "T". And that was only the book of Jude! Because reading on into II Peter 2:1-21, we find another excellent example of this very fine organization called Amway: "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not."

What a perfect picture Peter paints for us of the inner workings of this great big old money making machine called Amway. A money making machine dedicated to deceiving even the most dedicated and loyal followers of Christ. And how do they do it? Well the answer to that one is easy. They teach the people to blaspheme God. You see once they mesmerized and hypnotized the people through the lure of money, they also block God’s ability to convict them of that sin. It’s the same old story of Balaam. There just ain’t no difference except for the fact that Balak was then and Amway is now.

But let’s keep on reading. Because in verse 14 we find Peter continuing on with his very descriptive outline on Amway: "Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet."

I wonder if Mr. Rich DeVos and company would wake up to the facts of what God is trying to say if a donkey were to lay it all out in black and white. Well I don’t know how we compare to one of those four footed beast, but, without a doubt, we are giving it all that we’ve got. I mean somebody’s got to do it because Amway is getting stronger and stronger day by day... and the results are absolutely frightening. Because: "These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollution’s of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the later end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them."

Now that’s exactly what the religion of Amway is doing to so very many of God’s chosen people. But on a final note, to all those who might be connected up with the religion of Amway (the church of Amway), please heed the Words of God as found in Revelation 2:12-17, "And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works... But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication... Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches..."

This Scripture for today applies not only to the religion of Amway but all religions. The time is short! Turn away from your sin of blasphemy and repent before it’s too late.

"Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."

Keep up the good fight of faith... and keep on keeping the faith in Jesus!!!

Love,

Dad (Bruce Hallman)