On the Law: Test Yourselves

You’ll find this a very practical night, something that you can prove in the immediate present. We are told in scripture to examine ourselves—this is the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (verse 5). Now, what is the test, for I’m supposed to examine myself.

So here is a story, a true story. This nurse and her little charge, eight years old, and they are on a beach, and she said to the little boy, having watched the waves and all the things, she said, “Come now, it is time to go…you’ve been looking long enough at the waves, and everyone’s going home.” He said to her, “You see what I see, but you do not see what I see. Oh yes, together we both see the waves, but you do not see what I see.”

Many years ago, my wife had this vision. She found herself in a grove of trees with a wonderful clearing. At the end was this man and on the sides were people. One person entered and this was a woman bearing a book, and the title of the book was The Credence of Faith and the Forgiveness of Sin According to Judaism. Then came another woman bearing a book with a similar title, the same title, and she went toward the same man, and she read from the same book only it was According to Christianity. My wife said, “As I heard it, I always thought it was so much more difficult to be a Jew than to be a Christian; but when I heard what this woman read, I realized it was infinitely more difficult to be a Christian than to the a Jew.”

Now, let me show you the difference. One of our truly great men in the world of Caesar, Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli, said “Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism.” These are the words of this prominent, prominent Jew. Now let me show you the difference. Christianity as practiced today is Judaism. I don’t care what you call it…you go to the Catholic church, the Protestant church, or any other church, it’s all Judaism as practiced today because it’s all external worship. I keep certain days of the year…as Paul said, “I notice that you observe days, months, weeks and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain” (Gal. 4:10). So they both keep days called holy days. They observe certain functions, certain dietary rules. Recently the Catholics have begun to relax fish on Friday and other little nonsense’s in the world. But all of this is external worship.

Now here is the difference between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism practiced by the Jew, the Mohammedan, the Christian, is an external observation. That is Judaism, and all the Christians practice it. I go and I take a little wafer and I ate the body of Christ. I drink it down with a little wine and I drank his blood. Now I’m all good for the day. Regardless of what I do today or what I think today, I am just completely perfect now…I took it this morning…just perfect. So all those who practice this nonsense, they are part of that faith called by any name. If the Mohammedan turns towards Mecca in the course of a day and bends and prostrates himself a half dozen times, he has fulfilled the law. In the interval he can do anything he wants and think what he wants.

Now here is the difference between the two, as told us in the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard it said of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that any man who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed the act in his heart” (Mat. 5:27). So the entire thing moves from an external observation of things to a psychological state. He has to live psychologically. That’s the difference. So she said to herself, I didn’t realize how difficult it was to be a Christian. As Browning said in his Easter Day as he begins his poem, “How very hard it is to be a Christian.” Undoubtedly Browning had the vision that one has to live mentally, that you can’t just live physically. I can’t imagine what I want regardless and then go to Mass tomorrow morning and eat a little piece of bread and think I ate his body and drink a little wine and think now I washed it down, that was his blood, and then go through thinking anything. Oh no, I must mentally live this life and that is being a Christian. So Disraeli was right, Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism.

Now here, as we are told in scripture the very first act in scripture is “And the Spirit of God moved…and behold all things began” (Gen. 1:2). Now I’m going to share with you this night what it means by the Spirit of God moving. Well, God and his name are one, and his name forever and forever is I AM. Can you say “I am”? All right, that’s God, God buried in you, that’s God. Now, this has to move to produce any change in your world. If in the course of a day I remain seeing what I saw yesterday, I cannot change. I haven’t changed. If in the course of a day in spite of the things of life I move psychologically…like the little boy on the beach “You see what I see, but you do not see what I see. So you see the waves and you see the ocean, but you do not see what I see.” Well now, I’ll take that into our level. He undoubtedly had a dream beyond the wildest dream of the nurse. I know sitting on the beach in Barbados or at home…I can see it now and I can hear the ship calling the captain. My father provided ships with food and liquor and all the things that they needed, and so he entertained the captain, the chief steward, and all that he served. I can hear the ship calling, this huge blast, in this little…because we were only about a quarter mile from the harbor…calling the captain, because the ship must leave to make the next port at sunup, and he and my father are getting more and more plastered down below. Then suddenly my father knows the call of the ship and he said to the captain, “Well, we have to go!” So he tells the man to hitch up the horse and they drive the captain, pour him onto a little boat, and he in turn is taken off by manual labor oaring to the ship and they aided him aboard. I often wondered how he could navigate that ship.

But I would lie on my bed and I heard the call of the captain from the ship. Then my mind would dream of where is the next port. Mentally I would go into another port and another port. I can see it clearly that I could not remain in Barbados dreaming these things where I had to take that ship and go. So at the age of seventeen, having placed myself mentally…because the Spirit moved, “And the Spirit of the Lord God moved”…well, the Spirit moves and the Spirit is my own wonderful human Imagination…so I placed myself in a foreign land and it was always America. I would dream of it, so at age seventeen they couldn’t contain me in that little island. My father knowing that he couldn’t, I’d run away, he simply allowed me to go to America. Because I’d placed myself in America on one of these ships where they were calling and calling.

So I say to everyone, the difference between living as the Jew…and the Jew and the Christian are one in the outer world, it’s all one…the true Christian is one who has heard the story and begins to live psychologically. That if I could only dream of my state and enter into that state as though it were true, that is putting into practice the fulfillment of Judaism on this level. For everything is promised to man if man understands the great mystery. So could you this night dream of the man, of the woman, that you would like to be? If you do, and you know exactly what you would like to be, you must enter into that state. It’s a creative act on this level, just as much as on the other level. On this level you must enter into it…as Blake said, “If the spectator could enter into these images in his Imagination, approaching them on the fiery chariot of his contemplative thought…if he could only enter into these states, well then, he would rise from the dead, from the grave.” Well, I am in a grave when I’m here, and day after day after day I’m in the same state that is the grave. If I could enter into these images in my Imagination as I approach them on the fiery chariot of my contemplative thought, well then, I would rise from this state into that state which I have entered. Then I would meet the Lord in the air, and then I would be happy. (Vis. Last Jud., Plt. 82-84). I would completely change my world.

“If it be not now,” said Shakespeare, “yet it will come. If it be not now, it will come. Readiness is all.” All I need to do is to be ready for it. Well, I’m ready for it the minute I enter into the state and accept it as fact. That is the readiness, that is all that it takes. So I enter into a state and feel the reality of that state, well then, that is the readiness, then it will come. If it be not now at this very moment yet it will come, and the whole thing will appear in my world. That I know from my own personal experience.Locked in a little island with no means of getting out for months and months, I ignored the facts of life. Like the little boy on the beach, I see what they do not see. The travel agent said that you can’t get out, not until after September, and I want to be in New York City by the first of May. This is the month of April that I said to her I want to take my wife and my daughter to New York and be there by the 1st of May. “Can’t do it! There are hundreds and hundreds waiting in this island, and all the islands are waiting, and one ship services all the islands. One ship only carries a little over a hundred passengers. You can’t possibly get out.” Well, I didn’t argue the point. I simply sat in my chair and I didn’t see what she saw. I simply walked up the gangplank and felt every little step and felt everything I could put my hand on, my foot on—fulfilling Judaism: “Wherever the sole of your foot will tread that I have given unto you.” Not I will give it; I have given it unto you. Read it in the 1st chapter of the Book of Joshua, the 3rd verse, “Wherever the sole of your foot will tread upon that I have given unto you.”

Well, I took it literally but psychologically. I couldn’t possibly go aboard a ship physically, there was no ship there, but in spite of the absence of a ship in the bay I walked up that gangplank of a ship that I imagined to be there. I could smell the rawness of the ocean; I could put my hand on that rail and feel the salt that was gathered there because the salt of the sea driven by the wind collects there on these rails. I could feel the salt and I could smell the rawness of the sea. I could see the little island…and it was nostalgia…I hated to leave it and yet I had to leave it. I wanted to be back in New York City and yet I hated to leave the family in Barbados. This peculiar mixture of feeling…but it was a real feeling. There I looked and saw the little island where I’m leaving, and felt the reality of the ship. And then, in a matter of moments the agent is calling me. They had a cancellation in New York City. In spite of the long, long line in Barbados alone plus all the other islands, she singled me out because there was one stateroom carrying two, but because we had the little girl only three years old she could fit in and sleep with either her father or her mother. So they could get three into this rather than two. They looked at it as a commercial venture and yet it was the answer to my prayer…what I was doing in my Imagination.

So I tell you, the Spirit of God moved. Well now, that is fact. But now I must know it psychologically…and that is Christianity. “You have heard it said, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I tell you any man who looks upon a woman lustfully has already committed the act” (Mat. 5:28). Well, that’s a psychological state. I may restrain the impulse and think now I’ve kept the law, I didn’t perform the act. I wanted to but I didn’t…and I think I kept the law. Well, no one is justified by law in the presence of God we’re told, but no one. “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing with faith?” (Gal. 3:2). And so it is not the law on this level that allows man to transcend this world. I can take the law and work it perfectly on this level, but I must work it psychologically. Then I am preparing the way for the Promise. The Promise comes afterwards.

So here, I know exactly what I did. Then I said to her, “Why did you single me out and all these hundreds are waiting and there are thousands waiting through all the islands?” She did not answer me because she didn’t know. The orders came from New York City that there is one stateroom available and you give it to the one that you will. I was jumped from the bottom of a list of hundreds to the very top and I was given it…because I applied the principle. How very difficult it is to be a Christian. A Christian lives by the Jewish law psychologically. There is only Judaism as the foundation of the whole vast world. I don’t care what they will tell me concerning this ism or that ism or the other ism; it is all in that solid rock of Judaism. But that rock must be turned into water—it is a psychological action. Then the water must be converted into wine: Man must apply it. Then he is ready for the Promise where God gives himself to that individual.

So I tell you from experience that if one knows how to move…and anyone can learn the art of moving. For motion can be detected only by a change of position relative to another object. I do not know that I have moved if I am still seeing the same objects that I saw prior to the attempt to move. If at this very moment I want to go to the end of the room but everything moves with me and I still remain there, I might have moved but I don’t know that I have because everything is moving with me. Therefore, things must remain relative to my motion so that when I move I can see that I have moved relative to some objects in my world. Well now, this carries forward not only in space but in states. I want to move relative to my present position in my business. I am fulfilling a certain state, but I would like to be and I name it. Well now, if I were that, then move, move into it and enter into it. As Blake said, ‘“If the spectator could only enter into these images in his Imagination…” So I must penetrate it and enter into it.

If I enter into it, the same people who worked in the office prior to my motion are the same people, but they come in and they see me differently. I have been promoted from the level where they saw me to the level where they must see me. Well, I stand in that state until they all see me. When they all see me fulfilling that state, that’s all I have to do. I have gone into the state and germinated it. I have fertilized it because I am the creative power; so I go into that state and there I remain until I feel that the whole vast office sees me as they would have to see me if it were true. There I remain…and then in no time…“If it be not now, it will come, the readiness is all.” That’s all that it takes. If I go in and remain there, then they must see it. The one who formerly may have disliked me has to see me through the eyes as I now see in myself and promote me if he has the right or the power to promote me. He has to jump me over all…as in little Barbados this agent jumped me over all who were on this long, long list of hundreds. She had to! And she didn’t know why she did it, no one knew. But they had to do it, because I went into that state and actually walked up the gangplank and felt the reality, and saw a world as I would see it if it were true.

So here, I give to the one…said he, “Wherever the sole of your foot will tread upon that I have given unto you” (Josh. 1:3). Well, I’m a psychological being. I move from going to church on Sunday morning or Saturday morning and doing the outside things. I remain at home now and they think, “He’s a renegade. Who is he? He doesn’t come to church. He doesn’t eat the little piece of bread, he doesn’t drink the wine, he doesn’t do these things, so he is out of the pale.” But while home I move into states that they would all like to move into…but all of their prayers will not bring it to pass. They light candles, they do all kinds of things, and not a thing happens. And they keep on doing it year in and year out to the very end, and spend a fortune, even to their cemeteries, buying “holy ground.” And you do nothing…you’d just as soon give your body to any other little group who wants to cut it up. They won’t find what you have found by cutting up the body. But if it amuses them…it saves you the price of having to dispose of it. That’s all you’re thinking of, because you know they aren’t going to find anything by cutting up your brain, but you give it to them and you save yourself a thousand dollars. So your wife can get the thousand dollars and they get the little piece of flesh. They cut the whole thing up and they find out nothing. They’ll die just as fast as the other ones. I see where the one who is the first heart transplant, this fellow in South Africa, he is now quite ill, so that all of his transplants of hearts didn’t save his own, and now he is just on the verge of something. Well, it goes on that way, because all these things in this world actually mean nothing.

Learn to become a Christian, which is the fulfillment of Judaism. Judaism is the foundation. Here is the law…but it has to be turned from the rock into water. So Jacob comes into the field and the sheep must be watered, so he takes the stone from the well and he waters the flock. But he rolls the stone away first (the literal observation of the outside things of life). He simply rolls that away, and from it he draws water. Now, when we come to the same story in the New Testament, the first miracle performed in John is the wedding. So he takes the stone jars and he has them filled with water, and then he draws instead of water he draws wine. So the same story is told now in a psychological manner. So that I take the literal story that God moved upon the face…and as the Spirit of God moved, something happened.

Well, if God’s name forever is I AM, how can I move? Well, I’ve tried it and it always works.So if I assume that I am here, and I go to bed tonight knowing I am here, I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and I am here, and not a thing will happen in my world to move me elsewhere. But if tonight I go to bed and sleep as though I were elsewhere because I desire to be elsewhere, I wake tomorrow morning and I am still in L. A., but I will say, “Even though it is not here now, it will come.” What will come? What I assumed I am when I fell asleep. “If it be not now, it will come…the readiness is all.” And so I will simply put myself into the state, wake physically in this city to find that the phone will ring, a letter will come, all things will happen to compel me to make the journey, and I will go exactly where I have placed myself mentally. So I have discovered what it meant that the Spirit of the Lord moved…because his name is I AM, and I say “I am” and I moved. So when I moved, who is moving?—I am moving. I move into a state and there I remain until it seemed natural and then I fell asleep in it. As I fell asleep in the state, well then, that’s how I produced a corresponding state in the outer world to bear witness to the fact that I can create, for I created that state by motion. For the first creative act recorded in scripture is “the Spirit of the Lord moves.” If he moves, well then, he has to produce corresponding states in the world.

But man doesn’t move. He goes to bed night after night after night and he sleeps in the same state that he slept the night before, though all through the day he hungers to change his world. But he has not yet become a Christian. And hundreds of millions who call themselves Christians are not yet Christians. Because Christianity is but the fulfillment of Judaism, which is turning the entire story that is the rock into water, and then the water into wine by application. So we are told in Paul’s letter when he wrote Timothy, he said, “Drink no more water now, but use a little wine for your own stomach’s sake” (1 Tim. 5:23). Don’t anymore…just simply use wine now. You know it, you’ve heard it, apply it! The minute you apply it, you’ve turned water into wine. So I tell you how it should be done: I gave you the water. Now, don’t use water anymore, apply it, try it. So, “Examine yourselves to see whether you’re holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Cor. 13:5). Well, if Jesus Christ is in me and he is the creative power of God, I must test myself so that I turn what I have heard by use into wine.

So I turn now this wedding feast into the most glorious thing by applying what I have heard. You gave me the water and now I will turn it into wine. How will I turn it into wine?—by applying it. I will go to bed this night and sleep as though I were the man that I would like to be and sleep as though I am that man. Well, I am…that differs from what I am this day…and that is motion. God moved and things happened. The thing that happened if he moved would change from what was, because all motion can be detected only by a change of position relative to another object. If I start moving from here to there and everything stands still, I know I have moved. I can tell it by the objects that I now see as I move relative to the objects. Well, you take that into states; it’s the same thing. And this is how this law works, and it cannot fail. It is absolute; it will not fail. But we are the operant power; it doesn’t operate itself.

So the first thing is presented to man in this glorious story in the Bible, and that is the foundation stone of the world: It’s Judaism. It’s the only reality in the world, that’s the solid. Christianity is not a new religion; it is only the fulfillment of one as old as the faith of Abraham, that’s all that it is. So Christianity as people claim in words hasn’t a thing to do with Christianity. A billion Christians in the world and they don’t practice Christianity at all. “How very difficult it is to be a Christian,” said Browning. And when my wife had that vision where here is The Credence of Faith and the Forgiveness of Sin According to Judaism”…then comes another woman with the identical book or title, and she reads from the same book but reads it differently. Then it dawns upon her how difficult it is to be a Christian. “And I always thought,” she said to herself, “it was infinitely more difficult to be a Jew than to be a Christian.” Now she realizes how difficult it is to be a Christian. In the course of a day you tell me a story and it doesn’t conform to what I want to hear, at that moment, if I’m a Christian, I don’t hear what you are talking about. So I don’t see what you see…I see what you see but you do not see what I see. So you tell me the story, the paper tells me the story, and all these things happen, but I don’t see it: That’s being a Christian. So I want to hear only what I want to hear.

Now here, we’ve just had an election. Last Sunday they had this panel of three men who followed the three different candidates, appointed by the different…well, NBC had one, and I presume they all had their many men. But there were three men and there was this panel. The one who followed Nixon, a young chap, they’re all young fellows, and he said, “The one thing that disturbs me, and I think disturbed us all as we heard him, no matter where we would go, he always spoke as though he were the president. That disturbed us all.” He left that panel still disturbed, “How could a man be so arrogant?” He spoke not in arrogance but he spoke in such confidence he was the president. He was not anyone seeking the office; he kept the whole in his mind’s eye. As he spoke to people no matter where he stopped, he spoke as though he were the president. While the others were appealing for votes and begging you to please vote for me so that I will become your president, he spoke as though he were. Well, I know he has my record, because I have his letter at home written on the stationery of the White House thanking me for…that is, not thanking me, thanking the lady who sent him the record. But it was not a form letter, from the structure of the letter, so undoubtedly he knows the story of thinking from instead of thinking of, for that record that he got is The Law and The Promise, and undoubtedly the law would interest him with his ambition to be what he is today, President Elect. So if he heard it as he claimed in his letter, well then, he lived in it. If he lived in it, he has to speak from it.

So man has to move from where he is into where he would like to be in order to realize what he wants in his world, and that is being a Christian. You can be the pope multiplied by any number and you still are not Christian. Hasn’t a thing to do with Christianity. Claiming yourself to be infallible means nothing. Infallible what?—infallible nonsense, all these stupid concepts of life that haven’t a thing to do with Christianity. Christianity is Judaism turned from the rock that is fundamental, you can’t rub it out, into its water form, which is the psychological interpretation of these stories. So then you turn it into that and you understand it.The minute you understand it, will you then try it? As you try it, that’s turning water into wine…the first miracle as described in the Book of John. But man thinks, well now, here is a man who comes into the wedding party and there is no wine and he brings in stone jars, he fills them with water, and he draws out wine. Hasn’t a thing to do with that. This whole thing is a great allegory; discover the mystery in the allegory.

So I tell you tonight as you are seated here, dream nobly, the most noble dream in the world. When you know exactly what you want, then what would it feel like if it were true? And that moves you into the state so that you see the world as you would see it if it were true. If it were true, then you have moved from where you were…and that’s the first grand creative act: “And the Spirit of the Lord moved” and then things began to happen. Well, the Lord’s name is I AM. Well, you moved, didn’t you? You don’t see the same thing you saw prior to the moving. Well, if you moved, then that’s God moving. Well, God became you. Why?—that you may become God. And you simply move right into the state and there you are.

I tell it from experience. When I was completely sealed in the army…can you conceive…you go to jail and you know you’re given six months to a year but you know at the end of the six months you’re going to get out. When you’re drafted in the army, there’s no six months; you’re in for the duration. You’re not brought in for six months. Well, I was brought in for the duration in the Second World War, and I discovered I didn’t want any part of it. When I made my decision I didn’t want any part of it, well then, I simply assumed I am out, I am not on furlough, I am in New York City in my own apartment. So I entered into the state. I moved from Camp Poke, Louisiana, which is 2,000 miles away, into my apartment on Washington Square in New York City. I looked through the window and I saw the Holly Apartments. We were then on the…quite a height…and I looked…it was named 6th Avenue, now it’s called the Avenue of the Americas, but we still call it, those who are early New Yorkers, we still speak of it as 6th Avenue. So I saw 6th Avenue and then I looked over to the park and here is Washington Square. In my mind’s eye I saw everything. Then I walked through the whole apartment, all in my Imagination, returned to my bed and went sound asleep. Nine days later the same one who disallowed my application was the one who called me in and granted it, after I saw this wonderful vision where I saw this perfectly marvelous paper and the hand scratched out “disapproved” as he had done and wrote in “approved.” And then a voice said to me, “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing!” I did nothing, and then it all unfolds. Well now, I moved, didn’t I? And my motion produced a corresponding external state. Then in nine days I was discharged honorably by the same man who had disapproved my application.

So I tell you what I know from experience: Learn the art of psychological motion. When you practice it, even though you go to synagogue Friday night or Saturday morning, you are a Christian. Well, who was the first grand Christian?—Paul. He never denied that he was, he said, “I am of the tribe of Benjamin. I am of the seed of Abraham.” He never once denied it, but he showed them this was only fulfillment. And his namesake Benjamin Disraeli comes out and he said, “Christianity is but the fulfillment of Judaism.” But those who remained couldn’t see it, they kept on in the outward observance, and he realized that was not it at all. You could observe things forever and you’ll never get off the rock. You’ve got to turn the rock into water, and the water into wine, and then you’re free.

So this is the story. On this level you can’t hear anything more practical. Tomorrow, if you think you must know the right people, well then, you’re wrong. If you think you must have a certain intellectual background, well then, look into the world…if you think these things, look into the world. Onassis with his half-billion or billion, and he left school, if he ever went to school, and started earning a dollar at the age of sixteen. And don’t simply grant him some intellectual power. He undoubtedly, knowingly or unknowingly, knew how to dream and dreamed correctly. So don’t grant him any peculiar power…no, he’s no Einstein. If you began to talk to him on these things concerning an Einstein, he wouldn’t know what you’re talking about…but he has his billions. All right, so he wants his billions.

I hope you don’t want a billion…enough to live comfortably in this world and enjoy life, but not this sort of nonsense. But I hope everyone here would have an intense longing for the fulfillment of the Promise. That’s all that really matters, just the Promise. But in the meanwhile, we have to live in the world of Caesar. All right, so take all that I told you this night…it’s the most practical thing I could tell you.This is how you achieve anything in this world that you want…I don’t care what it is. “And if it be not now,” said Hamlet in the very last scene before they all die, the 5th chapter, the 2nd Scene, where just before he drinks the poison because he’s waiting for them all to arrive…“If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.” He was ready and then this whole wonderful thing unfolded in the immediate present. But he knew it had to happen because he was ready for it, everything was ready.

So I say to everyone here take what I told you this night, it will not fail you, but remember, you are the operant power, it doesn’t operate itself. You have to move, and you move from wherever you are to where you would be if what you would like to be you are. You move into that state and fall asleep in it just as though it were true, and that’s what happens. Now, when it comes to the Promise that’s something entirely different. You will find that you will have eyes, eyes given you by one who was sent, and he will give you eyes to see who he told you that he was. No one in this world will know who he really is by words. He gives you eyes that you may actually see that he really is the being that he tells you that he is. Then you will know. The day will come, you, too, will give eyes to others that they may know that you are who you tell them that you are. And it goes on this way until there’s only at the end one body, one Lord, one God and Father of all.

But don’t forget what I told you this night concerning the use of God’s law. “So examine yourselves to see whether you are holding to the faith.” Do you really hold to the faith? If you believe this that I’ve told you this night, well then, examine yourself in the course of a day, are you holding to the faith? Test yourself to see. Now test yourself, am I really holding to the faith? Did I this day read a paper which sent me into the gutter and accept it? Did I receive a letter or something that pressed me into the gutter and I accepted it? Or did I actually hold to the faith and the faith is all psychological. I don’t have to accept anything that comes to me from the outside unless it conforms to what I’ve done. So no matter what comes, whether it be the newspaper or the radio or the TV or mail, if it doesn’t conform to what I want, I don’t accept it.If I don’t accept it, don’t just remain that way put something in its place and revise it completely. For in her vision it was not only The Credence of Faith but The Forgiveness of Sin. And to forgive sin tests the individual’s ability to enter into and partake of the nature of the opposite. So what is the opposite of what I heard? Well, then if I can really do that that is the forgiveness of sin.

Now let us go into the Silence.

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Now, are there any questions, please?

Q: (inaudible)

A: My dear, I would not limit this motion at all. I would, were I you, I would move psychologically to the point where I could actually say I would not limit it at all. If you want to experience the Promise, I would not say, well now, it will come at a certain moment; I would move psychologically as I do here in the world of Caesar. I would move right in and feel it. The average person, may I tell you, is frightened by it. They can’t for one moment believe that such things are possible. They’ve been given the strangest concept of Jesus. Our scribes have distorted the entire story. But the entire story is distorted…about Peter going to Rome and Peter being the infallible pope. Read the 2nd chapter of Galatians if you want to think Peter is the infallible pope. Paul said to him, and Paul called it…of course it depends upon what translation you have…he said to him, “You are condemned!” because when he was with a Jew he only ate as the Jews ate, and when he was with the Gentiles he would eat differently. But when the Gentiles came in the presence of the Jew then he ignored the Gentile, which was called the heathen, the goyim. Then Paul, who was the Jew of Jews, the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin, of a Pharisee, and he knew the truth, and how he condemned Peter. If Peter is the root, as told in Catholicism, of the great apostle, you should read the 2nd chapter of Galatians.

So I tell you, you go all out, and do to this wonderful Promise and feel as though what God promised everyone in this world he has fulfilled. See how it happens in your life. Live as though it were true. He didn’t tell me there was any limit to that promise:“Whatever you desire, believe that you have received it.” If that can be my desire, well then, I’ll try it. He didn’t say that this only applies to the world of Caesar. He said, “Whatever you desire, believe that you’ve received it, and you will”(Mark 11:24).

But can man want that more than he wants to be known? The average man wants to be known in the world of Caesar, and his little life is just like a little flicker, but he wants to be known. He’ll say tonight, “Well now, she married this or she married that, and she has a million dollars or five million dollars in jewelry.” So what! And they want that. So you say to the average person…really they do want that, you know. They want money, they want prestige, they want all these things, and it means so much more than the Promise. The Promise doesn’t interest them at all. But if, in your case, you really would like the Promise above all things, sleep this night as though it had happened. But if it is secondary, well then, it’s secondary. You must want it, my dear, with all your heart, because this is the entrance into a new age…that’s the entrance into the kingdom of kingdoms.

But if man doesn’t want it, he will say, “I’ll take it eventually.” “In good order” they’ll say. What they really mean is give me more of this. And so, I’m not a judge…I’m not here to judge anyone in this world. When he sent me into the world, it was only to tell this story. And the one that sent me was power, yet I stood first in the presence of love. So from the first was power I knew; yet I also knew prior to what I saw as power, it was love. It was love that came first in the presentation, when I stood in the presence in this divine assembly. But power did send me with the command “Time to act.” So I must tell of the power of God and this is the creative power. But I tell you, love came first.

Q: (inaudible)

A: But who knows what the longing of the heart was? On the surface you see what they see, because you’re looking at the same objective world, but do you really see what they see? When I was a boy and I heard the ship calling for the captain, others heard just a disturbance where they were trying to sleep; but I didn’t hear a disturbance, my mind began to dream. Here was the ship calling…and I knew exactly what was happening downstairs on the veranda…the two of them getting more and more lit, having fun. And the ship can’t sail without the captain, so after many blasts then my father would say, “Come, we must go now.” Oh, this happened time and again. But my little mind would simply dream and put myself aboard the ship. To this very moment I could smell any ship in the world. Do you know a ship has an odor unlike anything in the world? A ship, a galley, you go aboard any ship and the minute you enter a ship there’s a peculiar something about it. I must confess I love the odor that comes from a ship…it’s unlike anything in the world. As a boy I would dream of these ships. It was something entirely different…to get going from the little island that confined me. Well now, can you get going from the little island that confines everyone in the world and move into another age? He speaks of the two ages. So this age no matter how big you are…could be the president of our country, he is on a little island; and he has to dream of transcending it and want to give up what he thinks is so glamorous and so wonderful to enter an entirely different age. One must want it with all their heart, with all their soul, and when they want it then it comes.

So I would say to you, if you said to me tonight, I want and you named it in the world of Caesar, the same answer I would give you to that…what to do…I would give you to this other age. Because there is no restriction placed upon that statement “Whatever you desire believe that you have received it and you will.” But, can you desire that to the exclusion of all else? Others have conditions attached to it…oh, they’ll come to that after, they will say. I have many friends of mine who have all the money in the world but they feel insecure, all the money in the world. They will say to me, “Well, let me get another million”—he already has millions—“or more”—because he doesn’t feel secure—“and that will come in its own good time.” All right, so he can’t possibly sleep this night as though it came first, can’t. It must come first: “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.” Well, can I make it come first or am I going to put it even a close second. Not a close second, it must come first.

So you be the judge. I’m not here to judge. But I’ll tell you this much, there’s nothing on earth comparable. We have beautiful art in this world, but compared to the beauty…well, you can’t compare it. We just love and revel in the accomplishments of man in the world of Caesar, but you can’t compare anything in it to the new age. But how can I present it so that I can fire man to want it? Oh, there are moments…and you give your eyes that they may see, but you don’t lose the eyes that you give, you still have them to give. Still you do not lose them. No matter how often you give them, you don’t lose them. You only give them so that they may see that all that you said you were you are.

Good night.