February 27, 1998

THE LAWRENCE FAMILY
POST OFFICE BOX 515
FOUNTAIN    FLORIDA
       32438

Dear Carl,

        Greetings from the land of Sunshine and Tornadoes.

    If you did manage to ruffle my feathers, then shame on me.   I enjoy your stimulating letters a lot and I need to be challenged on things as important as my beliefs.
    First know that I too like technology and find it both beneficial as well as being morally neutral.  If you will look at my letter again I believe you will find that I did not refer to it as in a vacuum.  Like the 'Hemp Movement' it must be veiwed in the larger context.  Kind of like razor blades in a babies crib.   Nothing wrong with either one as long as they are considered separate.  If man can figure out a way to utilize something as a weapon, he will.  Technological developments in micro electronics are absolutely fascinating to me and the possibilities are wonderfully beneficial.  This morning we heard about a new development in identification implants being used for animals.  In the past, a group called INFO-PET had been selling a chip just a little smaller than a grain of rice that was injected with a fairly large needle.  Like you, my response was "No way am I, or most other people, gonna accept anything that big".  Of course thousands of woman have been taking the NORPLANT into their arm which spreads out several inches like a giant spider.   However, this morning we got word of a new and interesting development.  A New company called HOME-AGAIN has already moved INFO-PET outl of the saddle with a micro chip I.D. Implant that is so small that you can hardly see it.  It will carry more information and can be injected with a regular small hypodermic needle.
    Along here somewhere is the stumbling block we come to when we have to throw in that awful phrase; "These things are spiritually discerned".  One day ASIA noticed that the front of the new WINN DIXIE store is changing their name (or the main thrust of it) to THE MARKET PLACE.  The ET in market was darkened (lights inside).  It really stuck in her mind and got me to thinking about it as well.   We recently looked it up in the dictionary to find that the word ET means 'little'.   Therefore Little Mark.

MARK = a line or symbol (symbolizing the SSS #)
MARKET = a gathering of people for buying and selling
ET = little

Another interesting development lately has been the ability to more accurately perform carbon dating.  NBC Nightly News a few evenings back, brought to our attention that early carbon datings on the SHROUD OF TURIN was off and the evidence now conclusively points to the time of Christ.  Secondly, seven flowers have been found imprinted on the cloth in full bloom.  The scientist said that these flowers only grow in the Holy Land and that they only bloom around Easter time.  There is NO scientific explanation of how the imprint could have gotten onto the cloth and NO scientifically known process that could have caused such a thing.  The ONLY unanswered question now remains whether or not the image is actually of Jesus.  Maybe irrelevant to our subject of the HERB, but interesting.  No hemp plant images were reported on the cloth but that could definately be something they wouldn't want to make too much of an issue of.  Would be nice though wouldn't it?
  
So I agree and certainly don't see technology as evil, in and of itself, but prophesied and pretty much neccessary to bring about the things which must shortly come to pass.  Only with modern computer technology can we have the fulfillment of buying and selling via a MARK in the right hand or head.
    We take advantage of lots of technology here in order to free ourselves as much as possible from the MARKET PLACE.  I think you already know that we have a Solar powered home (totally), keep a TV, video recorder/player, FM/AM, CB, Shortwave, weather band and small home recording studio.  We avoid all of the develoments in technology for fertilizers, bug sprays and other nasty chemicals, do find TV and computers a bit dehumanizing and this most of us have encountered when dealing with receptionist at utilities and phone companies ect., where the people who deal with the public tend to take on the personality traits of the equipment that they work with.  Even nationally televised comedians do well ($) making jokes about that because such a large part of the population understands very well that phenomenon.  As Lily Thomlin used to say "Sir, We don't have to care or be nice.  We're the phone company".
    The reason, Carl, for "imagining all the bad things that will happen, when there's enough bad things already going on" is that we don't consider the coming "bad things" to simply to be projections of our imaginations.  I certainly agree with you about suffering and torture and I also do not relish being separated from my family and placed into prison.  That is exactly why I wish to be certain that my actions are based on what I really believe.  That is why the discussion should be encouraged now before we are faced with prison.  People who use herb should understand how bad prison is and be sure that HERB is truly a SACRAMENT for them in the context that their faith would include the Grace neccessary to endure such trials.  I think that I have shared this story with you before.  It has to do with PREPARATION.  Corrie Ten Boon went through the Nazi concentration camps and survived.  She relates this story: "In China the Christians were told, 'Don't worry, before the Tribulation comes you will be raptured'.  Then millions of Christians were tortured to death.  Later I heard a Bishop from China say sadly, 'We have failed.  We should have made the people strong for persecution rather than telling them Jesus would come first'.  I feel I have a Divine Mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ.   We are in training for The Tribulation."  Corrie Ten Boon
  
Especially in the modern American Christian church, there is a false doctrine called a Pre-Tribulation Rapture where millions of Christians in this country prefer not to look at those parts of the book of Revelation that sound so 'unpleasant', or as you say, the "bad things that will happen".  They have a 'false hope' that they will leave early and have adopted a complete scenario for that which is not in scripture at all.  From the beginning of the 'hemp movement' I heard phrases from Jack Herer like HEMP CAN STILL SAVE THE WORLD (cover of Emperor) or then later Chris Conrad, "HEMP, LIFELINE TO THE FUTURE".  Needless to say, neither wrote a scenario that was in line with the one in the Book of Revelation.   Because HEMP does not exist in a vacuum.  Its virtues are worthless if not used.  Just as there is no power in the gun, and there is no evil in technology.   And without Faith there is not even healing in Christ.  But Hemp demands cooperation from the rest of the world.  Christ only seeks a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
  
So shame on me, not only if I have allowed you to ruffle my feathers, but shame on me if I have not spoken the oracles of God, but only given you my opinion.  Jeff told me that all of you who left this country and went to Jamaica shared somewhat in the scenario, (just like the ole' KJV has it written down and delivered into our 20th Century hands) that the 'bad things' are coming) that everything is on schedule with a much bigger plan than that of Jack and Chris.  Jim promised me that at the last round-up, you and Jeff will show up, and you yourself have already admitted you've been here before, so I trust that you will be stirred to rememberance, not by me, but by that same true hope, and that all these things are working together for good, since the last chapter promises a future that will make these present troubles not worthy of even being compared.  A future of glory worth preparing for and not one brought about through the hands of man which I think we have seen just about enough of.
    I do enjoy however hearing of all your exploits and victories along the way.  Did you hear that a man from our area just overturned his conviction at the appeals level 50 plants for gluacoma.  You probably already heard it but I'll send you any updates that I get.
  
Winter garden was excellent with lots pf snowpeas, cabbages and various greens.  The chickens are gettin' fat and seem quite happy on 'death row'.   The rain barrels fill up one day and the solar panels charge the batteries up good the next.  Thanks to 'technology'!
  
The main letter that I was excited about getting printed was the one that mentions Jim's sentencing testimony with the pelican story and Asia's tape, but you can certainly take excerpts from any thing you like.  My main interest is that we encourage people to be prepared spiritually and mentally first and foremost.  The Bible doesn't belong to Jerry Falwell, it is a love letter to us filled with hope and not just some instrument for political ambitions,(even herbal ones), there will not be an "early rapture" or a 'greening of America', but for those who are ready, there will be trouble, worst than this world has ever known, but we have the Promise of a new heaven and a new earth, for if there is no resurrection and "in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable".  Without that Promise I see no reason to avoid whatever economic system is setup for commerce.
    The Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus and the Mark of the Beast certainly sounds like a good system when viewed in a vacuum.  No cards to lose, no cash to be stolen, no numbers to remember, and easier to identify terrorist and illegal aliens.  Only the Holy Bible has warned us that it was coming two thousand years in advance and that our bodies do not belong to us but were bought with a price.  We are the temples of the Holy Spirit.  Only the Bible specifically warns us about allowing ourselves to be marked and NUMBERED for the purpose of buying and selling.  The only time that JESUS got 'violent' was when he overthrew the tables of the money changers in the TEMPLE and accused them of turning the HOUSE OF PRAYER into 'an house of merchandise'.   From then on in the New Testament, the TEMPLE is always your body.  The Jews did not understand that what Jesus was talking about when he said to 'destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in 3 days', that He was talking about the Temple of His body.   American church people still revere those stone (and crystal) cathedrals made by the hands of man.  People who have a relationship with the HERB are usually closer to understanding that the true TEMPLE of GOD is the one not made with the hands of man.   As you have agreed, the HERB-MAN knows this intimately.
    Sorry for stopping here.  More later.  Write when ya can, much love.

THE LAWRENCE FAMILY
POST OFFICE BOX 515
FOUNTAIN    FLORIDA
       32438