April - July 1978
Temptation
We felt very vulnerable. Our staff was small, our finances unsure, and our fund raising task enormous. If we were to ask for only one-time, small gifts, then indeed we would have to inspire a million people with new vision about the frontiers. How could such a limited staff ever do that? And how, especially, could we hope for enough $15 gifts to pay the $650,000 balance of our down payment by September?
Satan was well aware of our predicament, and tempted us immediately. In March, 1978, we received a letter from the Summit leadership. Their request was very simple but, under the circumstances, must have seemed humiliating to them. They wanted to know if they could rent the campus for two more years if we successfully completed our down payment in September. They would pay us $30,000 a month, they said.
Thirty thousand dollars a month! It had been a long time since we had seen that much money. And we surely needed it! We needed a miracle by September, and after that we would face massive mortgage payments every quarter for years to come.
But the facts about Summit hadn't changed. It was still
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an Eastern cult. In the big auditorium across the street the big Buddha still sat, garlanded with flowers and worshipped day and night. Chants still floated across the campus. Cult leaders still seduced Christian young people with their talks about Jesus and their strangely-altered music borrowed from evangelical hymn books. But their Jesus did not die on the cross. He did not shed his blood for their sins. He was not the Son of God but only a son of God — even as they themselves were becoming.
We felt that to rent to them, therefore, would be dishonoring to God. In my mind the temptation was very similar to that faced by the Israelite kings in the Old Testament. Many of them seemed to want to follow God, but for political reasons allowed the high places of idol worship to remain. Rather than displease God, therefore, we decided to keep the buildings vacant. God simply would have to provide for us in a way that was right. And we would have to trust Him to complete what He had begun, no matter how desperate things might look!
There was one additional factor. By faith, we felt sure that we would need the entire campus long before those two years were up. As the months went by, more and more mission organizations joined us in the building where we had our offices. And we constantly received other requests for space.
The letter from the cult alerted us, however, to the fact that in spite of reports to the contrary, Summit still wanted this particular campus!
The year before, just after our major victory, Mrs. Prophet announced the purchase of a beautiful piece of property, which she called Camelot. It was near UCLA, but had only three buildings, obviously inadequate for their needs. We wondered then if that purchase had been mainly a face-saving move, or if they planned to build.
The summer of 1978 was very different from the previous year. The Church Universal and Triumphant (Summit)
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was still just across the street from us, watching and waiting to see if we would be able to complete our down payment. We sensed that they were keenly aware of our financial struggles, as well as of the opposition we faced, even, at times from within our own ranks. By all reports, they were ready to take over immediately, should we miss that payment. Indeed, one report said that they already had the money to buy the campus outright.
The summer before, many people in the area had responded to our need partly because of the vocal opposition by Summit. Perhaps cult leaders realized this because, in the spring of 1978, they chose to be silent. Even during their conference at Easter, they didn't challenge or harass us. They stayed on their side of the street, and we stayed on ours.
It is true we still prayed daily for their salvation. And since they wouldn't allow us near them, as the weather allowed, we sought to witness by keeping our windows wide open while we sang songs about the blood of Jesus during our staff times each morning. But we wondered at the unprecedented peace.
During this time I was working steadily on the first edition of this book. Toward the first of July the blueline arrived from the printer for me to check before the presses would roll. I sat in the downstairs lobby working on it, at the same time acting as receptionist.
The activity across the street, as well as what I read, reminded me of all the Lord had brought us through. It was once again the time of the largest conference of the year for the cult, and the campus was full. This time, however, no one came near us. No one except Ari.
Over the previous several months, several of our staff had been drawn into conversation with this blond, curly-haired young fellow. He claimed to be Jewish, but said he had been involved at some time or other with the Moonies And now he was a devoted member of Summit.
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I was a bit annoyed the day he walked into the lobby and interrupted me in my work. "Why are you against us? We believe in Jesus just like you do," he began.
With a wrench, my mind came back from the intricacies of editing, and I prayed inwardly for wisdom and grace.
"It is not enough to believe in Jesus. You must also obey Him," I said.
"Oh, we do that," he answered casually.
"No, you don't. The Bible says you are not to go to mediums, nor to speak with people now dead. And Mrs. Prophet does that all the time."
I pointed out to him the story of Saul's visit to the witch of Endor, and God's rejection of him as king because of it. "It's all in your Hebrew Bible, I said. Go home and read it."
Three times he made a trip across the street to get an answer for one of my comments. Three times he recognized how inadequate those answers were.
By then others had joined me in the lobby, and one suggested that he allow us to pray for him.
"Sure, why not?" The answer was too flippant.
When we started to pray, immediately he began to call upon Buddha, Krishna, St. Germain, and Kali. Even Kali — the Hindu goddess of murder!
"Stop!" I commanded. "That is blasphemy! You are not interested in the truth. Your mind is closed. And we will not pray for you when you are like this. Now go and don't come back!"
I was surprised at my own words; I had never done anything like that before.
"Can't I come again?" he almost whined.
"Not until you are ready to search for the truth. It will do no good unless you really want to find the true God! When that time comes, we'll be glad to help you."
That was our last personal encounter with the cult, but only the beginning of years of testing which the Lord would bring us through. To believe that He would provide was not
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easy when the money wasn't coming in. To endure when accused, betrayed, and deserted was even harder. It was the same story of the journey in the wilderness which Moses and his people went through. I so much wanted to avoid that.
But God saw we needed the wilderness too.
