The Mystery of Inspiration

Tonight’s subject is “The Mystery of Inspiration.” We are told that all scripture is inspired by God…that is, “God breathes.” It is defined as, well, how will I put it…a divine action upon the lives of certain people that qualified them to receive and communicate sacred revelations—the prophets, the apostles, the incurrent eyewitnesses. Many of them like the prophets do not know what they are receiving. As we are told, “The prophets who prophesy of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired concerning this salvation; they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when they predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you”. Their vision was foreshortened, so they saw as present what was really future.1144 ¶1

Now, the apostles are sent to point out the fulfillment of scripture. When they come into the world, sent by the risen Lord, they simply have the same experience, and they point out all parts of the Old Testament to show the fulfillment of scripture. It’s so difficult to get over to man, to an individual that he is God. They rebel at the very thought. They’ve been conditioned to believe that God is someplace in space, something outside of man. And they can’t believe that all that they behold, though it appears without, it is within, in their own wonderful human Imagination. It’s so difficult…they think it’s blasphemy when you speak to man and try to imply that he is God. He rebels against it.1144 ¶2

Listen to these words. You’ll find them in the 10th chapter of Matthew, “He who receives you receives me.” Now listen to it carefully, “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me”. Now we go to the 8th chapter of Romans and here we are told, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will raise you also through his Spirit who is in you”. Now, the very first that we quoted from the 10th chapter of Matthew should tell you that God is in you. Whatever you think of Jesus Christ, the Bible identifies the Lord God Jehovah with Jesus Christ. The writers of the New Testament identified the Christ that governed their lives with Jehovah, who influenced and inspired the prophets…one being. So here in this 8th of Romans the inspired writer known to us as Paul tells us that “If Christ is in you, though your body is dead”—and I can tell you from experience it is dead. I have stopped it. I have time and again moved into a certain society, arrested within me—not in you, in me—the activity that caused the animation that I am observing; and as I arrested it, everything stood still and it was just as dead as anything in a museum. If you walked into a museum and saw all the wonderful things round about you, they are dead, they are made of clay or marble. Well, I have seen people just like this, and then suddenly I desired it, and felt the motion within me, this possession as it were, that inspired state, I arrested it. As I arrested it, it all stood still. I walked among them and they were just as dead as dead could be.1144 ¶3

So he makes the statement, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead”—and he states it quite clearly—“he who raised Christ from the dead will raise you also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” How to convince man that the Lord God Jehovah is in man, he is dreaming man, and in the end he will awaken as man? How to convince man that the prophets, whose vision was foreshortened and they always saw as present what really was future, and they told it in mysterious images and types? They say that Christ is the Rock…the Rock is Christ. “And of the Rock that begot you, you are unmindful, and you’ve forgotten the God that gave you birth”. They equate the Rock with God, the Lord God Jehovah.1144 ¶4

Then you sit in the Silence, thinking of nothing in particular and suddenly a rock appears before your vision, it’s a quartz. You look at it…it’s just simply a quartz, nothing much about it…and suddenly it becomes fragmented into numberless pieces. You look at this fragmented rock and then it molds itself into a human form seated in the lotus posture in deep, profound meditation. As you look at it, you recognize it to be yourself…you’re looking at yourself. Here is a rock, shapeless, a quartz, fragmented, gathered together and formed into the human form. It’s now a meditative figure and you’re looking at it and you see yourself. Then it begins to glow and it glows and glows and glows and when it reaches the limit of translucency it explodes. Then you realize the truth of the vision that one saw, that a Rock begot me.1144 ¶5

Out of the state of death comes life. You are the God spoken of in scripture. You came down into this world and took upon yourself the limit of contraction, the limit of opacity, which is man. And man is dead. Here, three and a half billion of us walking the earth, fighting and carrying on; and we’re fighting and carrying on because the being within us who makes us alive is dreaming and he hasn’t awakened. When he awakes, he puts an end to all the conflict. But until he awakens he thinks all of the animation is taking place independent of his perception of it and he doesn’t realize he is animating everything in his world; and his dreams are projected on the screen of space, and he’s fighting with his own visions, his own dreams. One day he awakens, and he awakens within the dead body; it’s a grave where he deliberately and purposely entered and began his dream. The whole vast world is his projected dream. One day he suddenly awakens within himself. When he awakens, the symmetry and the poetry of scripture and all the imagery of scripture surrounds him, everything surrounds him. He realizes then for the first time that he really is the central figure of the Bible; that it is written about him and it’s not written about anyone else. There is no one else, because God is one and his name is one…and his name is I AM. He awakens and he knows I am now awake, and he didn’t even realize that he was asleep.1144 ¶6

He was asleep in a body that really was dead, but he being life itself animated it…because he and the breath are one. In Hebrew and Greek the word “breath” is the same word. So he enters death, the body; his entrance is the breath entering. God breathed once and the body became animated. And this animated body with the dreamer within it is dreaming the world. One day he awakens from the dream of life, and then all the confusion comes to an end within him. Then at the very end after he tells his story—not everyone will believe it— having told his story or recorded his story, he takes off the garment of death and returns, but enhanced, to the being that he was before he entered the garment of death. For now there’s no limit to expansion, no limit to translucency; there was a limit set to contraction, to opacity, and that limit was the body of death which is man.1144 ¶7

Well, who would have thought that the imagery of the prophet was true when in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy he speaks of this Rock: “Of the Rock that begot you you are unmindful, and you have forgotten the God that gave you birth.” He equates the Rock with God. Then someone seated in the Silence, not thinking of anything in particular suddenly sees a huge quartz, a rock…not anything to write home about…just a rock. Then it fragments itself, and you realize that this one being, this universal being is defused in all. Here is a universally diffused individuality that is…and the Rock’s name is I AM forever and forever. Well, you say “I am,” and I say “I am,” we all say “I am.” Well, everybody born of woman says “I am.” It’s a completely universally diffused individuality that is the fragmented Rock. You realize in the end that not a being on the outside exists independently of your perception of it. It’s all really within and you project it on the whole vast world. Everything is contained within you I don’t care what it is. So you desire this, that or the other, it is all contained within you.1144 ¶8

Now, this inspiration comes…not the whole Bible is inspired. There are certain passages in Paul’s letters he confesses are not inspired. When he passes his own personal opinion, it’s just as erroneous as mine…if it’s an opinion. If I tell you what I know from inspiration, what happened to me that’s true, can I find passages in the Old Testament that bear witness? I must have two witnesses: I must have a passage in the Word of God and I must have it actually parallel my own experience. If it parallels my experience, I have two witnesses. When two different persons agree in testimony it is conclusive. So I bring the Bible, the Word of God, and I bring my own experience and there they parallel. Here is the Rock that begot me. Well, I saw myself begotten out of a rock. I looked at this rock, the whole thing is fragmented, it gathers itself together, and here is a person seated in this wonderful lotus posture. I’m looking, and all of a sudden, why, I’m looking at myself. But not myself as I see when I shave in the morning, I am seeing the most glorious, the most beautiful being that I could ever imagine. Well, I’m certainly not that to myself when I shave in the morning or at any other time of the day for that matter. But this is myself raised to the nth degree of perfection. He’s in meditation and he’s meditating me. And I must be as perfect as he is perfect. When in his own eye, he who’s meditating me, I am as perfect as he is he awakes within me and I am he. But that being is eternal life and it came into a body that is dead, and started the dream of life. Well, that is true of everyone in the world…this completely diffused being. Everyone knows that he is, and everyone because he knows he is, is saying “I am,” and that is God’s name forever and forever.1144 ¶9

So there are passages in Paul when he begins to talk about marriage that are not inspired. He said…he confesses he’s not married, and he wishes that everyone was as he is. Well, if everyone was as he is, there would be no offspring. But he said that it’s far better to marry than to burn. In other words, it is far better to have union in what he calls the marriage state than to long for such satisfaction and burn rather than marry. Well, that is his opinion; that is not inspiration. When he condemns the homosexual in his letter to the Romans that’s his opinion, because he forgot scripture. Scripture is the Old Testament, and in the Old Testament God made everything and then he said it was good and very good. So he forgot that God made everything and pronounced it good when he begins to insert his own opinion. So not every word in scripture is inspired, but you will know the passages that are inspired; because as you awake you begin to unfold scripture. So he expounded to his disciples in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Not everything concerning, but the things concerning, himself. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets and the psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures those things that concerned him.1144 ¶10

Now, the only scripture that he had was the Old Testament; there was no other scripture. The New Testament came afterwards to point to passages in the Old Testament that he had pointed out. So when you read the New Testament, any passage quoted by the risen Lord from the Old (he only quotes from the Old Testament), you pay strict attention to it. In the 10th of John when he said, “So you condemn me for saying that I am the son of God,”, he makes the statement, “I and my Father are one”. He said, “Why do you condemn me for saying I am the son of God? Is it not written in your law”—and now he quotes the 110th Psalm—is it not written, “And the Lord said unto my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand’”? And then he quotes the 82nd Psalm,, Is it not written that “I say, ‘Ye are gods’”? “If it is said that you are gods and scripture cannot be broken, do you condemn me whom God consecrated and sent into the world?” So he’s quoting only scripture. Every passage he quotes or any passage quoted of him is quoting of the same Christ in you, but he is the risen Christ who is fulfilling scripture. The minute you awake within yourself you are the risen Christ. There aren’t a bunch of little Christs running around, only one; and one is being gathered together into one being.1144 ¶11

Eventually everyone will be sent. I can’t conceive…although we have different talents and we’re all called upon and given different talents as told in scripture…I still cannot believe that one is left out of the embrace, which is the insufflation of God; and therefore the minute that you stand in his presence you are qualified as an apostle. For the one outstanding requirement is to have seen the risen Lord. And so if I see him, I am qualified for apostleship, which means “qualified to be sent.” Well, if I am sent, then I go to experience scripture. Then I must tell it to everyone and point out the passages of scripture, meaning the Old Testament, to show the parallel between what has happened to me and what the Word of God said through his inspired prophets. So when the prophets inquired, it was said to them that you are serving not yourselves or your time, but you are serving our time. So it was not yet fulfilled for them to do it. And so now the time is here. Since the first one began and the first one awoke, from that moment on all are awaking. We are in the act of awakening as God who actually became man, and man being a dead being, he took upon himself death to prove his own power of overcoming death.1144 ¶12

So the inspired one…you can’t stop it. When it comes upon you, it comes unexpectedly, it comes suddenly, and no one knows. I know in my own case, whenever it happened to me it would happen when I’m sitting in my chair in the living room awake, or it would happen at night on the bed. But I can’t stop it. Whenever it happens I am possessed, and possessed as though something is wearing me. Then all of a sudden the vision appears and the ears are opened and everything. Then you know you are now seeing things that kings and prophets longed to see and did not, and you are hearing what they longed to hear and did not. You know the time had not fully come; but now it has come to you and suddenly you are seeing and hearing what they longed to see and hear, but they did not. Then the entire scripture is unfolding within you passage after passage.1144 ¶13

So you will know the inspired passages from what is taking place in you. Not everything is inspired; there were times when they wrote certain laws, dietary laws, based upon what they called the need of the time. But that is not inspired scripture. The inspired scripture you must fulfill, for that is the Word of God. So just as we have in the New Testament passages that are certainly not inspired, we have in the Old Testament passages that are not inspired and they enslave the minds of men. So he said, “You will deny the Word of God for the traditions of your fathers” and these traditions are man-made. If you’re going to accept the man-made traditions, you will never know the Word of God. But the Word of God being inspired whenever you awaken that’s what you’re going to fulfill. Everything that is inspired in scripture you fulfill.1144 ¶14

So the inspired Word of God comes to certain individuals…eventually to everyone. But as it unfolds, it comes to certain ones, for he is re-building his temple. The temple was purposely shattered. And now instead of having dead stones, we become living stones in the temple of God, and that is the body of God. The body of God is not any church, as the churches talk about. They speak of the church as the body of God; hasn’t a thing to do with the church. For the temple of God is not made with human hands; it is made of the redeemed. Everyone who has awakened becomes a living stone in the body of God, and it’s one body and one God, one Lord, one Spirit…and you are that one Lord. So listen to it carefully, “If the Spirit of Christ is in you, though the body is dead, he who raised Christ from the dead will raise you also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” Well, if he isn’t dwelling in me, he couldn’t raise me. And I know from my own experience when I awoke I didn’t see anyone else; there was no one lifting me up. But the wind was there, the breath was there, so the invisible God was present and present in me. But I saw no one other than myself.1144 ¶15

So I awoke within myself. The body was dead, and when I came out of it…if you’ve ever gone into a recovery room in a hospital…in my own case, in 1952 I had my gall bladder removed, and by then they had recovery rooms. This was in New York City. So they wheeled this body of mine into the recovery room. Instead of taking you back to your room on, maybe, ten or twenty floors below the operating room, if something went wrong, they’d have to simply wheel you back upstairs. So to avoid that, they wheel you out of the operating room into an adjoining room, so that if something goes wrong you can quickly be sent back into the operating room and they can correct it, repair it, whatever it is. When I came to after about four hours, I looked around and thought everyone…this is the morgue. I thought everyone I saw was dead; they all looked dead. But I knew that I at least was aware, so being aware I knew in some strange way I may be dead to the world but still I’m aware. Everyone I saw…I looked over…everything that I saw was simply like on a slab, a dead, dead body.1144 ¶16

Well, these are dead. It’s the presence of God and you are God within these bodies that animates them. Therefore, I tell you, you cannot die. You cannot go to eternal death in that which cannot die, for God is the God of life. So nothing can die, I don’t care what it is, it just can’t die. But the body it wears returns to the dust out of which it was made. But you can’t die, for you are God himself. God actually became man and man was dead. In the body of man, because of his presence, man became a living being. His presence is called his “breath” for his breath and Spirit are one. So when he breathed into man he entered man and man became a living being. So when you’re told that he breathed upon his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” he is the risen Lord now. He is disappearing from the visible world, but he enters within. That’s the story, that’s the mystery. That’s inspired history, inspired scripture. And so, he enters by the breath. Well, what breath?—he himself is the breath. So one who tells you the story having experienced it, when he disappears where do you think he’s going to go? Where else could he go but within? And yet he contains all within himself. But he has to go within; doesn’t go without because he’s left the outer world.1144 ¶17

So this mystery of inspiration is simply, if he has possessed you, you know it. There is no doubt in your mind when you are possessed, none whatsoever, because you can’t stop it. And you aren’t determining the visions consciously…they are happening. All of a sudden you are cast in the central role. You are not an actor on the outside, you’re the star, and you’re playing the central role in that particular drama. When suddenly it is all over, you search the scriptures and there is the inspired Word of God that you have just fulfilled. All of the inspired passages of scripture you will fulfill and then you tell it. Not everyone’s going to believe you, because they’ve been conditioned to believe in some little external Jesus Christ. It annoys them to hear you speak that way, because they don’t want you to refer to Christ, the false Christ as “some little thing on the outside.” The whole vast world worships a false Christ. It is Christ in you that is the hope of glory, and it is that Christ in you that fulfills scripture. “Scripture must be fulfilled in me. And so beginning with Moses and the prophets and the psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself,” nothing else. “For everything was written about me,” he said.1144 ¶18

So don’t be embarrassed when I tell you that you are God. Dwell upon it! When you leave here tonight, go out believing yourself to be that important. If you want someone in your world to be important, you must start treating him as though he is important. He will never react to you as an important person until you treat him as though he is. If in your mind’s eye he’s a little person, well, that’s what he’s going to be to you. Well, the same thing is true of yourself. You don’t have to become arrogant. Oh no, there’s no arrogance about it, but you’ve got to assume that this thing is true. And you dwell upon it and then the visions will come to confirm it. Everything in scripture is all about Christ, and you are Christ, and Christ is Jehovah. So, “When you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. Why do you say, ‘Show me the Father?’ Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. There is no other Father.”1144 ¶19

So here, in the 89th Psalm, these three words are used, “I have found David and he has cried unto me, ‘Thou art my Father’”. That I know from experience. But he also called me “God,” called me “My Lord.” And I also know that I am his Rock that begot him, for all these fragmented parts I played, and put them all together it is my son David. When I take all the things I’ve ever done in this world, and I’ve played all the parts, good parts, bad parts, horrible parts, but every conceivable part I’ve played. Now you take it altogether and fuse it into one grand whole, and the whole personified is eternity, and that eternal state is a youth called David. So he calls me Father, he calls me his God, he calls me the Rock of his salvation, and then you know who the Rock is that we have forgotten. You know who the Lord is and you know who the Father is. And you tell it and if he is still asleep in those that hear you, they think you’re mad…because all inspired men appear mad to those who hear them. It’s always so. They’ll judge you as a mad person. They call him mad: “Why listen to him? This man is mad and he has a spirit.” So in the 10th chapter of John he is called insane and said to have a demon, he has a spirit, so why listen to him? Then he points to scripture.1144 ¶20

But no one expects that one coming into this world today is coming to fulfill scripture. They think scripture is a prophecy, and it’s going to be fulfilled in a secular manner. It’s not going to be fulfilled in any secular manner. While I walk in garments of death I will fulfill it. I will animate these garments as long as I occupy them. And I’m telling you, if you’ve never had this experience it’s the most exciting thing imaginable. When you are possessed by the Spirit and taken into a room like this and you know intuitively who you are. You know the power that you’re feeling you can arrest it, stop it. But you also know that if you stop it, everything in the world that you had perceived is dead…if you stop it. You arrest that activity and everything stands still, perfectly still, and it’s dead. You go over and examine it…it’s all dead. Then you release it and as you release it—not there but here in your own Imagination—everything once more becomes not only animated but it continues its purpose. If the bird was in flight when you arrested it, it continues to fulfill its purpose to go to the branch. If someone was waiting on a table and they were arrested while they were carrying the food, you can keep them there as long as you want to. After a while you release it. They continue and they fulfill their purpose and serve the table.1144 ¶21

Now, if you can imagine that taking place all over the world. Well, I’m telling you it’s true. But it’s difficult for man so identified with the body of death and believing himself to be it. He shaves it every morning and he bathes it and cleans it and dresses it…and he thinks he is it. He doesn’t realize he is in it. “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” So this body that I take so much care to keep it well and to do all things for it is dead; and I who entered it, I am the living being who experiences scripture while I am in it. So I came down into the world and took upon myself the body of a slave and was born in the likeness of man; and being found in the form of man, made myself obedient unto death, even death upon the cross which is man. While in this state of death, I experience my own Word that I inspired the prophets to write. For who else inspired them but God and you are God! So you foretold what you’re going to do, and it was the most incredible thing in the world: that you would actually die, become dead and overcome it. The last enemy to overcome is death and you are victorious, so you overcome death.1144 ¶22

You awaken within the grave, and then unassisted you come out and find yourself the being that you were, but now enhanced. Those who still thought of you only in terms of the outer form, they come to the grave and they see the things that were foretold, but him they did not see. How could you see him with mortal eyes? You can’t see him. So he said, “You have eyes and you see not, you have ears and hear not”; and now he gives them eyes that they may see and bores ears for them that they may hear. Now you see and you hear what kings and prophets longed to see and hear but did not. Then the whole thing unfolds within you.1144 ¶23

So let no one tell you and believe it. They can tell you, but don’t you believe it, about going to some retreat so that you can in some way cultivate inspiration. It comes out of the blue and it comes when you least expect it. So when teachers come telling you take a five-month course with me or a six-month and then we will develop this capacity to be inspired, forget it! They sit for hours over a period of months and years to raise the kundalini fire. Well, they can sit until the end of time and they’ll raise nothing. It doesn’t come that way. When that fire rises within you, it first comes down like some bolt of lightning and splits you in two, and then you, as that fiery serpent, you rise. It happens so suddenly and so unexpectedly, you can’t sit in any way and lift it up…it hasn’t yet come down. Only he ascends into heaven who first descended. And it’s actually a bolt of lightening that splits you in two, which is called in scripture, “the curtain of the temple” which is the flesh. Takes that dead body and splits it, and then the Spirit trapped is set free and up you go, back into the heavenly state from which you came. You are the God spoken of in scripture: “I say ye are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, you will die like men and fall as one man, O princes”. How else could you tell it? Could you tell it clearer?1144 ¶24

So, if you can take it, from tonight on, when you think of yourself, don’t think of any physical descent. People tonight are so proud that they came out of certain physical lines. If they really knew the background of that one, they’d be ashamed of it. Many a person has paid a fortune after having made a fortune to trace his line, and then paid another fortune to forget it. When he finds what the physical descent was he wants to forget it completely. Here I was reading recently that Frederick Myers—and this is the attitude of the whole religious world—he was the head of the Society for Psychical Research in London. Well, he’s gone from this world now. He thought he would ask the priests and the ministers and all those associated with religion a very simple question. The question was this, “What do you think is going to happen to you when you die?” This minister answered, “I suppose I will enter into the joy of the Lord. But why bring up such an unpleasant subject?” Now here is a man teaching…now this is an actual fact…it is given as actual fact by Mr. Myers himself that he asked this minister and he’s going to enter into the joy of the Lord. For you’re told, “Well done, my good servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord.” Well, he takes that literally and he thinks because he serves with a certain suit of clothes and a turned back collar that he is something set apart, that he is one of the chosen, so he will enter joy of the Lord. But he’s scared to death to enter into the joy of the Lord…why bring up such an unpleasant subject. Well, that is true of the whole vast world over.1144 ¶25

I tell you, you are immortal, you cannot die. You come into death—this world is a world of death—and the bodies will return because they’re dead anyway and they’ll return to dust. But you, the occupant of that body cannot die. You still remain asleep and you’ll find yourself clothed in another body of death, but you being alive, you animate it. You will animate a young body, a lovely young body, say, twenty years old, and you’ll animate a world just like this. It’s terrestrial, it’s alive, it’s real, and you’ll find yourself doing similar things in an environment which you in the depth of your being find best suited for what you still want to do. You’ll continue doing it until one day you awaken in that garment and fulfill scripture. Everyone must fulfill scripture; that is the goal. At the end, you take it off and then you return to the glory that was yours before that the world was. We will all meet in that state, and we knew each other intimately before we came down. We will know each other just as intimately when we ascend and all the masks are taken off. No one in this world could ever know anyone as intimately as we know each other in eternity, for in eternity we form one; we are many and yet one. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one”. And in that day there shall be only one Lord, one king, one God and Father of all…and all form the One…so not one will be missing. I don’t care what frightful dream the individual has had, it will still in the end be but the dream. You take it off, and when he returns we will love him as dearly as we did before the descent; for we’re all one and not one can be lost.1144 ¶26

So inspiration in a sense is a gift of God. You cannot acquire it, it just happens suddenly, and it happens by the God in you. For that is the God of whom I am speaking tonight…the one being right in man. If you read scripture carefully, it is not inspired from without, it is from within. So when he asks the question, “If Christ is in you…”, if it is, well, I say yes he is in all of us: that is the power of God and the wisdom of God personified as you. Well now, “If the body is dead, he who raised Christ from the dead will raise you also,” for he only raises up Christ. Christ is risen, so Christ in you is the one who will be risen and you are he. “Through his Spirit who dwells in you” and his Spirit is breath. The God breathed his inspiration and you hear the wind and you feel it, but it is all you. So he is now the image of the invisible breath who radiates the glory of that God-breath. So it’s in you and that’s why you can awaken…and everyone will awaken.1144 ¶27

Now let us go into the Silence.1144 ¶28

When I start passing opinions, setting myself up as the criterion of what is right and what is wrong, that could be as false as all outdoors. There are certain isms in this world…I think of one, she’s blonde, or was blonde, and someone told her she looked lovely in lavender, so lavender became the perfect color and all of her followers had to wear lavender. Then onions and garlic disagreed with her, so that was simply the fruit of the devil. And red was awful on her, so red was taboo. They built up this ism on her own little superstitions, and then she called it something from God. Well, you find these false prophets all over the world. Prophecy is over. Predictions and fortune telling as always has been. That’s not prophecy.1144 ¶35

Prophecy is over and you’ll find it in the Old Testament, that’s prophecy. The New Testament is the fulfillment of prophecy. So Man comes into the world to fulfill the Word of God, but when he fulfills it, he re-interprets the Old in light of his own experience. And man having these traditions of the fathers will not accept his re-interpretation of the Old; because to them Abraham lived and that’s all there is to it. He lived thousands of years ago. He was promised a child, that child was called Isaac, and that happened thousands of years ago. He will not believe the whole thing is prophecy and that Isaac is born…the little child that was born not according to the flesh but according to the Promise, as we’re told in Galatians…and that little child is the Christ child bearing witness of the birth of God. So when it happens in him, he simply takes the Old Testament and shows the passage where he has fulfilled it. And his name isn’t Abraham, his name could be anything. But he knows that Abraham was a state that he entered to receive the Promise and fulfill it. But man…if you take this story as secular history then you’ll never see the scripture…never see it.1144 ¶36

My old friend, Abdullah, who was born and raised in the Jewish faith, said, “Not only was I raised in the most orthodox environment in Judaism, but for forty years I was a strict vegetarian. I had never tasted pork in my life, no part of the animal. The voice said to me, ‘If you will not eat what they give you, how do you expect them to take what you give them? So you are feasting them and you expect them to accept what you teach and yet you will not eat what they offer you.’” And he said, “I broke my fast after the vision, and what do you think was served me, and it had never happened before? I was the guest of honor and I went to this lovely party, and they brought in a little roasted pig. The whole animal, right at the top of the table, and I am the guest of honor. I broke not only my fast from not having had meat in forty years, but never in my life had I ever had a piece of pork…and here I am breaking my fast on pork.” So, you won’t take what I’m offering, well, have I taken what you offered? So, all things are clean if you see them clean. As we are told, “Food will not commend you to God; you’re no worse off if you do not eat it and no better if you do,” as told us in Paul’s letters, no worse off if you don’t, no better if you do.1144 ¶37

But there are people who believe they’re going to get into heaven by not smoking, not drinking, and not doing this and not doing that. I was one of those and when I met old Abdullah, having observed me for a while, said “You know, Neville, you’re so good you’re good for nothing.” He told me that “Because you thought you could acquire merit by not doing things.” After a while you see everything in this world and allow it…you just allow it. You don’t want to duplicate it. I have no desire to take from you anything in your purse…like someone left a coat here last night, 250 in this party, and this lady came in with the coat over her hand and she went into the kitchen…had no right to be there. These were all men, 250 men, the motorcycle club, and here she had the coat. Well, Mr. Harrison who is supervisor here saw this woman with the coat, and just said to her, “What are you doing with the coat?” She said, “My brother left it here.” He said, “Your brother left it here? Well, what does he do?” “He works for Lockheed.” Well, he said, “The man who left that here doesn’t work for Lockheed, he works for Blue Chip Stamps and he’s a red-headed man, about thirty-five,” and then he took the coat from her. She gave it up quite innocently, quite freely. She’s just one of those people who walk around and pick up anything…saw the coat hanging there, so she picked up the coat. She must have heard from someone or she didn’t have to hear…she walks in and picks up the coat. But Mr. Harrison redeemed it. And maybe it is not Larry’s, but she gave it up so quickly that he knew that she was fully aware of the fact it wasn’t her coat. She saw the coat and she’s going to take it. Well now, forgive her as that’s part of her life, just part of her life.1144 ¶38

In little Barbados where I come from we’ve always been in business and some of the richest families on the island and their wives…they couldn’t help it, they were simply conditioned that way…kleptomaniacs. They’ll pick up everything and then pay for nothing. Well, the clerk saw them do it, would tell my brothers that she has so and so, and she has so and so. Well, they never said one word to her. The husband knew she had this peculiar habit and they’d make a little note, and he never complained. The bill was sent to him and he paid it. So she went home thinking she got something for nothing. They were the richest families. These are not people who are hungry. They were rich, I mean really wealthy. Come in and pick up silly little things like apples. Put six little apples in quickly…and she could have bought the store. Well, what can you do? When you invited her to dinner, you nailed things down; but in her social capacity you had to have her to dinner. I recall her vividly…I can see her now before my mind’s eye…a sweet, lovely, cultured lady. But don’t you leave anything, because off it would go. It’s not an economic set-up; it’s part of the mind.1144 ¶39

You know who made her?—God. And so, that’s it. When you know that God made everything in this world, you forgive everything in this world. God wrote the part for her and God played the part and is playing the part. And so, he will go through all the sufferings, because he has to stand the embarrassment of the part he wrote when he’s arrested. Well, who is arrested? Well, the body is dead and the occupant of the body is God, and he has to stand the embarrassment for the part he wrote. You go to a play and people will hiss the actor. You want to hiss someone call the author on the stage…he did it. The actor’s only expressing what the author wrote.1144 ¶40

I recall vividly…I played in a show on Broadway for about, I think it was about twenty-five to thirty weeks of being hissed eight times a week, six shows and two matinees. Yet the author is unseen as God is unseen. Then you’ll know the meaning of the cry on the cross: “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”.1144 ¶41

Good night.1144 ¶42