Letter (22.3.1989) from District Apostle Kraus to every New Apostolic family in the
United States and Canada.

My dear .....

Your letters are here on my desk and I am pondering the answer to your expressions.
I have to involve a big scope in this matter, which goes beyond the expectations and
mind of man.
Our heavenly Father created a beautiful creation about which I cannot go into
details, and entrusted it to Adam. In the conversation between our heavenly Father
and Adam, a counsel was given to Adam which he did not keep. He degraded our heavenly
Father by exercising his own will and the end of it was terrible. Adam was despised
and he, as well as the whole creation, was cursed. Because of this curse the time
will come when God's work and investment, which took Him six days, will be no more,
as we read in Revelation 20:21.
Our heavenly Father created a new creation. He even built a city, the new Jerusalem,
which was shown to the Apostle John, and created for a new people. For them our
heavenly Father had to pay the highest price that was ever paid for a commodity. He
had to sacrifice His only begotten Son in order to give man an opportunity to be
redeemed.
The Lord Jesus followed the course which His Father had assigned to Him and esta-
blished the ambassadorship in His stead. He empowered His Apostles (the ambassa-
dors) with all that which He earned on Calvary:
Forgiveness of sin.
The registration in the Lamb's book of life.
To be marked with the mark of the Lamb.
To be fructified with the life of the Father,
which constitutes the new creation.

The Lord Jesus did not only make His Apostles ambassadors; He also made them
TEACHERS. A teacher is active to put character into the scholar.
We are not only chosen to enter and occupy this new creation and this new city which
John saw on the Isle of Patmos. We, the scholars, are chosen to be Kings and Priests
and to reign for a thousand years in this world amongst those who will be left over
from he great destruction that is to come over this earth, and amongst the three
hundred billion souls in the eternity world, who have lived and waited for this
teaching for the last six thousand years.
During these one thousand years (the Millennium), the devil and his cohorts will be
locked up in the bottomless pit and nothing will be in our way to proclaim this
gospel. What will be the essence in his Millennium? - To proclaim our gospel and
offer the opportunity to enter into that new creation.
Apostle Paul mentioned that it is God's will that not one soul shall be lost.
Therefore God has promised this Millennium, so that everyone will receive this offer
through us, who were redeemed and made Kings and Priests, who did not only grow up,
but were brought up to be active in this royal highness, which is the ultimate
that can be reached on our way of life.
Now we come to the delicate point which is OUR OWN NATURE. Our own nature is exposed
to those powers which played the game with Adam and Eve, whereby man and God lost
everything. - And we are the offspring of Adam and Eve.
Our heavenly Father set OUR OWN FREE WILL over everything. The District Apostle J.P.
Fendt, who is in eternity, said the penetrating words in a District Service in
Kitchener: I BELIEVE BECAUSE I WANT TO BELIEVE.... This expression can also be used
in other areas:
I OBEY BECAUSE I WANT TO OBEY
I FOLLOW....
I ENDURE....
I LOVE....
I WANT TO BE HONEST....
I WANT TO BE FAITHFUL....
I WANT TO BE GODFEARING, KIND AND PEACEFUL MINDED....

Our WILLINGNESS is our contribution toward gaining that which God offers to us. In
all of the aforementioned examples it is up to us to overcome our adversary. That is
why the overcomers carry the outstanding names: BRIDE OF CHRIST, SONS OF GOD, HEIRS
OF SALVATION, KINGS AND PRIESTS. All these names come out of our actions applied by
our willingnes to reach those noble dispositions mentioned before.
I have wrestled with these powers in my New Apostolic life for the past fifty-eight
years.
Coming back to the ambassadors, the saviours, the redeemers, the teachers, the
counsellors, the leaders (which are the Apostles): They are GOD'S SERVANTS and He is
responsible for them. God always chose His own servants. His people did not choose
them. He ordained His servants and equipped them with the gifts and powers for their
ministry, AND NOT THE CONGREGATION. He assigned them their commission, which
means He told them what to do, as it says in Matthew 28:20, "TEACHING THEM TO
OBSERVE ALL THINGS WHATEVER I HAVE COMMANDED YOU."
Our heavenly Father Himself has called them; He employs them and has given them the
Holy Ghost to be their teacher, guide and counselor, which was confirmed by the Lord
Jesus.
Naturally, not even one of these servants has a monopoly on his office. Our heavenly
Father has despised and discarded many of them in the Old Covenant, and also in the
New Covenant; in the first Christian era and also in our time. But our heavenly Father
has never given this opportunity to the scholars (the members). He has never permitted
that His servants became the target of the members' criticism, of their judgment or
degrading. In our heavenly Father's operation there is no room for judges.
Amongst the twelve sons of Jacob was Dan, who was expelled by God because he was a
judge. He opened his mouth too much and gave himself up to becoming the outlet for
ungodly inclinations. Manasseh, the son of Joseph, took his uncle Dan's place, after
Joseph was married in Egypt.
So is it also in our time. Our inclination and our heart's attitude must be illumi-
nated before we speak, to be saved from an unhappy fate.
I said in Switzerland in a service, after our Chief Apostle was ordained, that he is
no longer Swiss; he has become the apple of God's eye. It says in the Bible ....touch
not the apple of my eye.... These are serious admonitions and lead to a terrible end.
Read in II Esdras 9:11-13 where it says ....the same must know it after death in pain....
Why do we in the New Apostolic Church have forgiveness of sin, the celebration of the
Holy Communion, and the participation in the earning of Christ? - In order that we be
cleansed, forgiven, reconciled, and that the inherited characteristics from our ances-
tors will be tamed and disengaged.
Our heavenly Father certified this fact with the beautiful words ....AND THEIR SINS
SHALL BE REMEMBERED NO MORE.... If our heavenly Father is willing to act
nobly toward us, then He expects the same of each and every one of us, His children,
who are called for this royal highness and for this nobility.
He who does not do this and goes to Holy Communion, participates in his own judgment,
which is a very, very serious matter. If this is taken lightly and not followed, the
Lord Jesus said ....IT WOULD BE BETTER IF THEY WOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN BORN....
What led the betrayer to a self accusing end to the point that he committed suicide?
He judged the man of God, Jesus, and had no right to do so.
A New Apostolic member, a so-called scholar for the royal highness that waits for
him, has only one thing to fulfill and that is: TO DO WHAT HE IS TOLD. HE HAS
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO SAY.
If God would permit His children, for whom the highest price is paid, to intervene
with their own ideas, then the first step would be taken towards a mass confusion,
as we have it in this world today. We pray: THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT
IS IN HEAVEN. So all those in heaven have nothing to say: ONLY THE SPIRIT
OF GOD DECIDES WHAT IS TO BE DONE.
The opposite of DEMOCRACY, which brought a mas confusion in our time, is AUTOCRACY.
We looked it up in the dictionary and there the word AUTOCRACY is described as
THE DIVINE WILL. This divine will reigns in the godly undertaking in our Church,
and is protected by our Chief Apostle to the highest degree, which we support
with all our life. The will of man is poison toward the will of God, and we have
no room for poison in our Church.
To those who do not agree with the above, I can only say that the Lord Jesus congre-
gated them into a group by themselves and He gave them a special name; He called
them FOOLS.
When he met the virgins, half of them were foolish and half were wise. The fools
pointed out what they had all done while living here on earth. The Lord Jesus did
not deny their works, but He only said to them: Depart from me ye doers of iniquity!
Wherein was this iniquity? - IN THEIR OWN WILL AND IN THEIR OWN IDEA,
coming out of their own heart. They set their own will and idea above the WILL of
GOD, just like Adam did. The heart of man is evil from youth on, and for this there
is no room in God's activity, nor in the kingdom to come.
The Lord Jesus said: He who is not with me is against me, and He who is against me
is my enemy. So if some are not with us and do not agree with us - why do they not
all get together and fashion their own religion, or their own club. We will even build
a church for them, because the Lord Jesus said that we should be good to our enemies.
So I am willing to do just that, without asking any questions - and nobody will stop me.
Maybe the one or the other may think: Are we not cared for more than that? - We will
not care for those who will not subject themselves in an unconditional obedience of
faith. Why should the fools be cared for?
During the last few years our heavenly Father added one thousand members to our dis-
trict EVERY DAY. We are kept busy to serve them, to love them and to bring them
up into a heavenly standard.
We now have sixty Administration Brothers who fly to these overseas countries, some
of them three times a year for two to three weeks. we had many others before that, but
God put something in their way because He did not want them anymore. He discarded
them! Why? Because when it rained, it rained into their nose. That tells you every-
thing. Such, our heavenly Father does not want and does not need. The others who
remained, are a blessing and make headways. We not only gather the hundred and
forty-four thousand, we also try to prepare them for the Lord Jesus on His return.
One more point I would like to share with you. In some place we have divine ser-
vices where our members walked for hours and hours through snow and mud and sat
outside on a cold roof, in the bitter coldness of winter, to listen to the expression
of the ambassador. Others are put in jail and we feed them in a mechanical way as
best we can. No one here on this continent has to pay such a price for his faith,
and for that which God offers.
So remember: The future Kings and Priests, while they go through their learning
period and are scholars here on earth on their way of life, ONLY HAVE TO OBEY
AND DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD, AND THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
TO SAY IN THIS GODLY OPERATION. THEY SHOULD FOLLOW IN
UNCONDITIONAL OBEDIENCE OF FAITH.
With all our love and heartfelt greetings from our dear Chief Apostle.

Sincerely yours,

(signed) M. Kraus

P.S. This letter will be sent to our Chief Apostle for his information and to
every New Apostolic family in the United States and Canada.

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