The World Is A Stage

God the Father has given himself to us, where this gift is still to be realized in experience. It remains a gift to be attained, and let us see how you and I, who possess the gift, become aware of it. I absolutely believe one hundred percent the statement of Shakespeare, in As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts” — the parts, from the cradle to the grave, beginning with the little infant, mewling and puking in his nurse’s arms, and ending with the end, where a doting man, pardon me, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything. But I’m going to expand that beyond this little section of time, from the cradle to the grave, because I speak from experience. I’ll go along with Blake: “I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of six thousand years, dazzling around the ice skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold.” I know that — what — myself, for my Creator and Redeemer.1136 ¶1

So here we take a play, and try to follow me closely with this play. I tell you it is true: judge not the play until the play is done. The last act crowns the play. The last act we call Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the very center, the way — in Judaism the way out of bondage, being to liberty. Let’s think of a play in this form. Think of a vast plan, six thousand years, the whole thing is kept, and you think it must begin at one point and come to an end in one linear motion. But think of the entire play as taking place, think of it as something that is taking place absolutely and continuously — without reference to duration, to repetition, to position in time. Let’s think of it as taking place, and in the end, when you are crowned, having gone through all the thoughts you’ve played, everybody then just scattered in place in time — portions of it are brought into one wonderful state.1136 ¶2

A portion in Genesis — pardon me — that took place, if you read the play chronologically, thousands of years ago: two angels came to the house of the Lord and Lot received them into his house. And then the men on the outside knocked on the door and demanded — the one who was on the inside, the stranger — Lot pleaded with them not to take the man, but he had two virgin daughters; take them, but not the stranger in my house. They demanded the stranger in the house, not knowing the stranger was a messenger from God, and a messenger from God is God — I whom he sent, I am one with the center. If you see me, the son, you see the one who sent me, and he was sent by God the Father, with the power and the wisdom to do anything on earth. And so they insisted on the man, not knowing who he was. And the man took Lot — by the way, the word Lot means to veil, to conceal, to cover. So he took Lot by the neck and pulled him into the house and closed the door, then blinded all those who saw it so they could not find the door. It is telling you that Lot is not revealing, he is concealing a great secret. The word Lot means to veil, to cover, to conceal — a great secret. So behind the story there is a secret: on the outside the men are seeking a man rather than a woman. It is telling you they are homosexuals — that’s what the story is telling you. It is the story of Sodom. And then comes the power from within, and he blessed the city and brought down fire and brimstone and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. We have a word today, sodomy, which is simply homosexuality. Here the whole thing was destroyed because they insisted on the stranger, not knowing the stranger was the one sent from God.1136 ¶3

That is a portion, just a shadow of things to come. When you come to the end — here is a story told thousands of years before; it’s linked to a story told thousands of years later; and they linked to a story told another thousand years — and prior to that, which is the 19th chapter of Genesis, of the story, we go back and we take the story of Abraham. And he was sitting in the tent, the door of the tent, when suddenly three men appear before him. He didn’t see them approaching; they suddenly appeared and announced the birth of a son. He couldn’t believe it, he was too old, and Sarah was too old — here was the announcement.1136 ¶4

You take that story, you take the story of the homosexuality. When we jump a thousand years into the story told in Samuel — the story of Samuel, who refused to wear the armament of men. They gave him the sword, the shield, everything; he said, “I cannot wear these,” and he went unarmed, only armed with the grace of God — a youth, a young man, his name was David. He took five stones. He went forward to meet the giant, who would destroy — if he could — destroy Israel. And when he saw the youth, he laughed: “This ridiculous little thing coming towards me.” And David said to him, “This day the Lord of Israel, who goes with me, will deliver you into my hands, and I will sever your head and feed your carcass to the fowls of the air.” And that day one stone went through, into his forehead, and he fell. He had no sword of his own, so he took the sword from Goliath and severed his head, and then threw the carcass to the fowls of the air, and brought the head into the presence of the king who had promised to set his father free if he destroyed the enemy of Israel — for anyone who destroyed the enemy of Israel, his father would be set free.1136 ¶5

Now you take these stories. Now we go into the New Testament, which is another jump of a thousand years: “What think ye, is he the Christ, whose son is he?” And they answered, “The son of David.” He said, “How, when, did David in the spirit call him my Lord? If David in the spirit called him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” And they asked him no more. We take these stories, spread over thousands of years, and in one single moment they all gather together into an entire new pattern which leads man from this misery, from the slavery, into living into freedom.1136 ¶6

I do not know of anyone — I haven’t read any place other than where I have held it in my room — where they gathered it together; it comes in the twinkling of an eye, so suddenly, because I have told you things of old, things that no one said before, and then I spoke, and it came to pass, as told us in the 48th of Isaiah: suddenly all that I told you in the past I now suddenly speak, and it comes to pass. How do you take it? Here is the promise: I will give you a son, in spite of your age — you were a hundred, and she is beyond the time of the bearing of a child. And here comes Lot, the nephew of Abraham; he entertains the angel of the Lord, and the homosexuals want the angel that they saw — it was a man — they do not wish his virgin daughters, they want the man, not knowing he has the power and the authority of God, for he is sent by God, and the sender and the sent are one. He pulls Lot, which means the concealed, the veil, the hidden, the secret, into the house, and he blinds them so they could not find the door, and he calls down brimstone and destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. He’s widely separated in time. Another thousand years we find David destroying the enemy of Israel. Here is the head, severed from the body — the body is thrown to the fowls — and here is one: “Thou art my son, today have I begotten thee.” We jump into the story of the Lord — well, Jesus is called the Lord, and David calls him my Lord, which means my father. When it happens to you — and it is going to happen to you, not one person in the world can fail — or, as we are told in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, the eighth verse: “When the Lord separated the peoples of the earth, he set bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God.”1136 ¶7

This whole drama is a transformation, a complete transformation of the son into the Father — that’s the mystery of the entire story. God, and God alone, plays all the parts; there’s nothing but God playing all the parts, and all the phases, all the appearances — such as sonship, which is named — this, anyone in this room tonight, no matter who you are, that is a phase called the Son of God, but the one playing it is God the Father. When he brings you to the end, this thing closes in upon you, and it forms an entirely new story, which you experience, revealing you as God the Father.1136 ¶8

The play is so lasting you cannot tell it, and you wonder, how long, O Lord, how long — because the whole thing seems to be a repetition over and over and over again. There is one vile crime in the world that is not openly described in the Bible — do you think? Read the Bible carefully; there is no one that is not described in the Bible, and described in detail. When you come to the end, and you’ve played all the parts, then you walk around with God himself.1136 ¶9

Now, this is how it happens. Who would have thought that a story told — this is 1971, this is the 20th century — who would have told that a story told two thousand years B.C., and one told a thousand years before that, and one told the first century, A.D., is contemporary with the 20th century. The whole vast six thousand years, which man could not understand, certainly portions of it come together like a magnet and forms an entirely new story, and you, the individual, experience — and what you experience: the one — he said, “Thou art my son, today have I begotten thee” — who stands before you, preceded by the homosexuals by a thousand years, and there are two next to you, and they’re looking at him with concupiscence. Is it not said of him, “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will”? He is the one he sent; he is called the hidden one in the Old Testament, away back — he is the secret.1136 ¶10

Now, a secret or a mystery in Scripture is not a matter to be kept secret, but a revealed truth that is mysteriously inherent. He calls to me — who calls? You, the one who was sent — David stands before you, and two homosexuals stand next to you, and they’re looking at him, and you know they’re looking at him — your son — with concupiscence. And you warn these two homosexuals of his victory, and before you, on a table, is a head — an enormous head, severed from the body, and there is the head of Goliath. And you are living in the 20th century, and here is the head of Goliath, here is David, and here are the two homosexuals from the story of Lot.1136 ¶11

There is a play, completely fragmented, taking place forever and forever — a thing to be done absolutely and continuously, without reference to duration, to repetition, or to position in time, but sometimes with reference to past time. So you take all that is seemingly past, because you read it, and having read it, it seems to you, having read it, it is past. So suddenly it becomes contemporary, and the whole thing is now taking place now, and you are the Father of this land. The two homosexuals are looking at him with concupiscence; you warned them he never lost a battle and never will, for he said, when he went into battle, “I go in the name of the Lord God of Israel; on this day he will deliver you into my hands, and I will sever your head and feed your body to the fowls of the air.” And that day he severed his head — the whole thing actually unfolds before you. And this whole drama then reveals to you who you are: you are God the Father.1136 ¶12

The transition took place; that was God’s promise to his sons. You will go into hell, and this world is hell — there is no other hell. Every vice possible for man to experience is clearly and openly described in Scripture. Read tomorrow morning’s headlines, or anything — nothing transcends what is in Scripture. As to violence, you have played it, you’re playing it, and you will play it if you haven’t. Then comes the end, and the end is the crown of the play. So judge not the play until the play is done. The last act crowns the play, and the last act is the story of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the pattern man; he is the way — in Judaism, that leads Judah, which means the world, from slavery into liberty, from bondage into freedom, from this world of Egypt into heaven.1136 ¶13

So the whole drama is taking place in us. How near you are to this eruption, I do not know — you’re told no one knows. But the point, for here is the part that you are playing: you are the Son. Not one child could be born in this world unless begotten by a son of God. He has set the bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God. So today they’re trying to stop the population explosion — oh, they’ll try it, maybe they think they will stop it — but not one child can be born who is not actually begotten by a son of God. It takes all the sons to form the Lord. So when you awaken from your present state as Son of God, becoming God the Father, you contain all, and you will not rest until everyone is brought back. Everyone must come back, but everyone must have the experience of wearing a garment called a son of man. He scattered these, the sons of men, and then placed them according to the numbers of the sons of God.1136 ¶14

And when it happens, the play which man could not understand — you’re reading it now as secular history — well, this shadow is cast in this world, and you do see the shadow of violence in the world, all the crimes of the world; for this thing was done before, that the world was — it’s called the purposes of affliction in Scripture. And when you pass through them all, then things that were scattered and widely separated in time, like the story of Abraham, and the story of Lot, then the story of David, then the story of Jesus, in one single moment — how could you put it all together? Here I stood in this wonderful, marvelous interior, a simple interior, and here is a man recorded as having lived one thousand years B.C., and I’ve gone three thousand years beyond it. And here are two homosexuals that went a thousand years before him, and they are present too, and here is the entire thing unfolding before me, with the head right before me, and I know: my son bought that — I turned to these — they’re widely separated by a thousand years, and I turned to them, I warned them that my son never has lost a victory and he never will, for he said that the Lord of Israel goes with him, and the Lord of Israel says to him, “Thou art my son,” and he is my son — he is telling me who I am, and I go with him, and he cannot lose a battle.1136 ¶15

And here the entire play unfolds — for God created the two homosexuals, he created David, he created everything in that play — it’s a play. He condemns none; he does not condemn the homosexuals, that’s part of the play; he doesn’t condemn anything in the world. The head — here is the head, enormously — may I tell you, there’s no head in the world, no matter how big it is in some museum, that doesn’t compare to that head. It filled the entire table, right straight from the neck — that’s all it was, from the neck; the body is severed and thrown to the fowls. And the whole thing is clear before me, clearer than you are now, vivid, clear, etched before my body, and here I am sitting, I’m looking at this fantastic unfolding of a play, with portions of six thousand years gathered together into a contemporary state, and it all makes sense.1136 ¶16

And then, when you come back to this level of consciousness, you read Scripture, and your mind, for one moment, is just simply stunned. You’re being — Genesis, and there it is; you read First Samuel, and there it is; you read Second Samuel, and there it is; you read the second Psalm, there it is; you go forward into Luke, and there it is. And here, six thousand years gathered together into one contemporary moment, and you are the central figure, and you are God the Father. I am telling you what I have experienced.1136 ¶17

So here, God himself gives himself to us, yet that gift is still to be experienced. It remains a gift — something that we do possess, but our goal — to be attained. It must still be experienced. When you experience it, then it’s yours. And then, at any moment after that, you can drop off this garment and you can say, with Paul, “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, I have fought the good fight, and now the time of my departure has come.” If I linger for a year or a few months, what does it matter, only to kindle and encourage everyone who hears it, that you are the only ones spoken of in Scripture. You are not the little thing that you said you are, and always have been — the Son of God, destined to be God himself. That’s the plan.1136 ¶18

So, as we are told by the poet, “Be patient, our playwright will show, in some fifth act, what this wild drama means.” He will show the meaning of it all — but I’ll tell you the meaning: the meaning is to reveal God. All right, God is revealed in you: he is you, lifting you, the Son of God, to the level of God the Father. That’s the greatest of all mysteries — how can a son become his own father? And that’s the mystery of the play: you become God the Father, you become the author of it all, and in the end everything is forgiven. So you’ve played it all, or you are playing it all, or you will play it all, and in the end you and I are one — one king, one Lord, one God and Father of it all. I’m right here in you, one body.1136 ¶19

I know what a power — I can’t begin to describe to you the power that is yours, the wisdom that is yours — blinded, yes, while you’re here, completely shut up. But when it happens, you have a power beyond the wildest dream of man. Nuclear power is like little firecrackers for the Fourth of July, it means nothing. We speak of the exploding sun and the power of a son — it is just nothing to the power that is yours. You’re coming into that power, with the wisdom to use it lovingly. May I tell you, a beauty beyond the wildest dream — power, but don’t think for one moment that it is violent; it will then be used lovingly. And when you actually wear — you will wear — the human form divine, and that form is love. I can’t describe to anyone in mortal word what I mean by a form that is love, and yet it is a form, and it’s love, and it’s your father. When you stand and look at David, David is the image of it, only in youth, and you are the Ancient of Days. You are the infant of love, the Ancient of Days, and David, the sum total of all your experiences, is the image of you — only he is you, he is eternally young; he is the result of all the pain and the self in which you have had.1136 ¶20

So when someone tells you, “You can do so and so and avoid this,” and the boy — that, all right, play the part beautifully, take the law and use it wonderfully; well, use it. But may I tell you, you will not avoid the essential parts, for joy and woe are woven fine, a garment for the soul divine.1136 ¶21

There are a few of you having some strange, interesting, mystical experiences. I’ll go along with Blake, because I too have gone through the world to which he speaks. “I traveled through a land of men, a land of men and women too, and heard and saw such dreadful things as cold earth wanderers never knew. For there the babe is born in joy, that was begotten in dire woe; just as we reap in joy the fruit which we in bitter tears did sow.” Now he tells us, in that fourth verse of his wonderful poem, The Mental Traveller, he mentions the exact parts of the body that really are nailed to this cross. First of all, the child is pierced upon a rock, his hands and feet, his head a crown of iron thorns; they cut his heart out at his side, that he may feel the cold and the heat. It is your head, your hands, your feet, and your side. But he’s telling it poetically, but he mentions the identical parts where you are actually nailed and pierced to this garment of flesh. But he told it in his own wonderful, beautiful use of English. I know from my own experience exactly how it happens; I pass through these worlds night after night, and I see exactly what he’s describing.1136 ¶22

And some of you are passing through these states now, and you are scaring to death those who love you and think that something is wrong with you. May I tell you, nothing is wrong with you — you are near the end; that’s why you’re passing through them. So let no one stop you — first of all, that couldn’t stop you anyway, you couldn’t be stopped now, it’s too late — and who would want to stop it, from your nearness to the end, to receive the crown? You’ve fought a good fight, and you have finished the race, and you have kept the faith, and now there is laid up for you the crown of righteousness. Let no one now bother me, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus — his stigmata, and yet not as the world calls it. You bear all the marks, and all the marks of these experiences, as we call it in Scripture.1136 ¶23

And so here are the events. The very first one takes the story of Abraham — three men occur suddenly, and they come from nowhere to announce the birth of a child; that’s Abraham. It starts that way right after the resurrection. You are awakened within the tomb, and then three men, after you come out of it, and you’re born — from about three men — you don’t see them coming, they’re there suddenly. They come to witness the birth of that which they had foretold: “Is anything too hard for God?” And so here is a child you said you could not have, but there he is, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and you call him Isaac, as I tell you you’d call him, and Isaac means “he laughs,” and he does — you pick him up and he bursts into the most heavenly smile. That’s in Genesis, and here’s the year 1959 — that’s a long time. 2000 B.C., it’s 4,000 years that it happens, and then comes his son.1136 ¶24

As I told him: “Thou art my son” — but I didn’t know I was his father until God gave me himself. I went through hell, then came that moment in time that he kept his promise, and his promise is: he gives himself to us, and yet the gift is still to be realized in experience — then comes the experience, and you realize it, it remains the gift, as a gift to be attained until the experience, and then you realize it. And here, a thousand years B.C., those words were said: “I say unto you, you are my son” — who is saying that? The Lord is saying it, and he stands before you and reveals you as the Lord. And then you turn to Scripture, the first century: “What think ye of the Christ, whose son is he?” “The son of David.” “How can this be — David in the spirit call him my Lord? If David calls him my Lord, how can he be David’s son?” And here the whole thing standing before you, then you know who you are. To whom did he say that? He said that to the Christ, who is called the Lord, and only David, in revealing, can no one else be viewed. And so David reveals him as the Lord.1136 ¶25

So I tell you, Shakespeare, though the greatest of all poets in the English tongue, was also a man of vision, with the capacity to write such beauty, and he told me — so you and I go, and we see, as you like it — it’s a very amusing play, if you’ve ever seen it, I love it. So it was in Central Park, in New York City, in the summer they have these open-air theaters, and we saw As You Like It, and here he throws these words upon the wind, and who really got it: “All the world, all the world is a stage — old men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.” Then he mentions the seven parts, from the cradle to the grave. [Music]1136 ¶26

But I explained it for you tonight — it takes in a greater time than the span between the cradle and the grave, it takes in the six thousand years, and the play is all told in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is an admiration of foreshadow that no one could understand, and Christianity is simply the way within Judaism. It was before the play, that was the purpose of the plan; it had a purpose, the purpose comes first, then the play, to unfold the purpose. So Christianity is the purpose buried in Judaism, which is the play, and when it unfolded they would not believe that was the meaning of the play, so they continue to observe the outer ceremonies, which is simply the play. But as it erupts and unfolds within us, we see all these parts, widely separated in time, pull into a single act, and here you see all these characters, and they’re still alive — these are the eternal states of consciousness. David is forever and forever and forever; he is forever, because you are the king, and if you are the father of David and you are king, he has to be a priest — “I’ll make you a prince forever,” for it is told in Scripture — he’s eternally the prince, awaiting the one who is king to recognize him, and then memory returns. In fact, now it is given — or prior to that you are the Son of God, and now you are God himself.1136 ¶27

That is the sacrifice: God gives himself to us, yet the gift remains a gift until experience; right in this experience we become possessors of the gift, and the gift is not your — is God himself. So I know from my own experience that I experience it, as I my ordered race have run, and I can say to the whole vast world that all of us, all the inhabitants of earth, we have one religion — the religion of Jesus, and that is the eternal, everlasting gospel; there is no other. It is the heart, the purpose of Judaism. Judaism is the foundation stone, that’s the play, but before the play was written there was a purpose behind the play, and the purpose was concealed, it was hidden, and in the end the purpose unfolds in a way that no one, knowing only the play, could ever have seen. It comes at the end. So judge not the play until the play is done. The last act crowns the play, and that last act is Jesus Christ, and you are the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God himself. Now let us go into the silence. [Music]1136 ¶28

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and grace is the gift of God unmerited, unearned. There’s not a thing that the son did to merit being the Father — he was God, the Father’s desire to raise his son to the level of himself. But only me — it doesn’t mean a little stone, that’s all symbolism — he was armed only with grace; that is sufficient for you, as we are told in Scripture. And when the thorn in his side screamed out for correction, three times he appealed to God to remove the thorn, and three times the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So your weakness could be anything — it could be bankruptcy, it could be a physical pain, it could be anything, whatever is human is weak, for we are all weak in these garments. “My grace is sufficient” — this goes on, only with my grace.1136 ¶29

You have no sword, so you take the sword from the one that — my grace brought down — and then you say, well, he said, resume sword. So this simply means grace, and grace is God’s gift of himself to man, and if he gives me himself, and I face the world as an opponent, they will vanish if I go on with the grace of God, “not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord.” So if I am armed with the grace of God, what does it matter what opponents will say?1136 ¶30

Any other questions, please? Destiny — follow the story is... [Music]1136 ¶31

All I understand was imparted by Abraham. Some, I’m just raising somehow the presence — in Abraham’s vision, three men suddenly appear while he sat in the door of the tent, in the heat of the day; he didn’t recognize them as messengers of the Lord, and he didn’t recognize that one was the Lord. And when he questioned at moments — but he, an old man, could have a child — [Music] They say to him, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And he admitted no, there was not — so he believed that nothing was too hard for the Lord, in spite of the fact he was already a hundred years old, and Sarah ninety.1136 ¶32

So when the child is born, three made a play — in his case there were three; in Lot’s case he offered his two daughters, therefore in offering two virgin daughters he was offering the two men, and there were two homosexuals who appeared in the drama. So here the child appeared first, and that was the story of Abraham, because three brothers appeared, and these three brothers simply to deny that you — one — could have the child, but the third one spoke and lifted the child, and he embraced it, and it smiled in his face — it was, I think, the laughing one.1136 ¶33