Partakers of the Divine Nature

In the second letter of Peter, we are told that “He has granted unto us his precious and very great promises, that through these we may become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). These precious and great promises can be recognized only as they are worked out in the life of an individual. These are the great and precious promises of God.

Now tonight, let us take a good look at what is promised. In Paul’s letter to the Romans (and Paul’s letters preceded the gospels) and here we read in these letters, “He is designated Son of God…through his resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). In the same chapter he says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who has faith” (verse 16). Here he identifies the gospel with Jesus Christ, so when you read the word Jesus Christ you could read the word gospel. So when we read now in the Sermon on the Mount: “Think not that I am come to abolish the law and the prophets; I am not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mat. 5:17). We could read, Think not that I, the gospel, came to abolish the torah of Moses or the promises of God through his prophets but to fulfill them. Can you substitute a person? Just take that out of your mind’s eye, a being coming into the world, and see a plan coming into the world, see a story, and it’s called the gospel. Can you see it being told you and it’s the most incredible thing in the world. All it asks of you is to believe it; actually to believe it so that it may become the engrafted Word. That it may actually engraft itself upon you through your belief. It will save you—from what?—from this world of eternal death. It will awaken within you, and everything said in the gospel concerning a man, you will be the man. For the story takes a man to express it. It’s the story of the power of God that will raise the individual who hears it and accepts it, and will raise him from this eternal death into everlasting life. But he will not only be raised to that infinite state, he will partake of the divine nature: He will be God himself. That’s God’s story…for the word gospel which means “good news” is the gospel of God.

So here, when we are told that he is raised, who is raised? We are told Jesus Christ is raised. He is designated Son of God in power through his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord. Then in the same chapter, the first chapter of Romans, he makes that statement, “I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith.” So here, he equates one with the other. So one is a person…we speak of Jesus Christ and you think of a person. I speak of the gospel and you think of a book, you think of a story, and yet he tells us it is one. If you could only believe for one moment it is a story that is being told to the world. The churches have taken it and personified it; and they should in a way, because it takes a man to express any attribute of God. And this is God’s story of “good news.” So you are the man, whether you be male or female, you are that individual who must first hear the story, consent to it, believe it, and allow it to engraft itself upon you. As it engrafts itself upon you through belief and you have faith in it, then one moment it erupts; and then the entire story as told in the gospel concerning a man called Jesus Christ unfolds in you and you are he, the redeemed.

But now you are power, you are a creative power, one with the divine nature…no longer moving from side to side as we are in this world, not knowing what it’s all about. When it happens to you, this is what you do, you say “I do not come to abolish the law and the prophets; I come to fulfill it.” It’s a story now completely erupting within you and you see the entire story differently. The first thing you say…when I say the first, I mean among the first…you spiritualize the Torah: “You have heard it said of old, ‘You should not commit adultery’ (Ex. 20:14). But I say to you that any man who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed the act of adultery in his heart with her” (Mat. 5:27). But don’t stop there, you take every statement of the Old Testament concerning a command and you spiritualize it.

Now here is one, “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk”…this in the 23rd chapter of Exodus (verse 19). Now that statement taken literally has enslaved a large section of our world for 6,000 years. You go into an extremely orthodox Jewish home or go into a restaurant, a Kosher restaurant, or a delicatessen, and you could not have anyone there serve you any product that came from the cow, a dairy product, milk, butter, cheese, if at the same time you order meat. If you say to someone, having ordered a piece of meat in a sandwich, put a little butter on the bread for me, well, they’ll think you’re insane… “Not in this restaurant, not in this house!” You would not have milk served at the table in any orthodox Kosher home if you had meat served. That’s not on the table. You might today having had a new development called margarine made not from the product of the cow but made from the vegetable world, then they could serve that in lieu of butter. But you would not have anything from the dairy served when meat is served. “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” That’s a statement.

Now, when this story erupts in man, they see all the Commandments differently. Here is an interpretation of it. The kid like the lamb has always been used as a sacrificial animal. Everything in my world is my kid. I brought forth everything in my world, good, bad and indifferent, but everything. Now there are certain things in my world I would like to get rid of, just leave behind. I should sacrifice it…that’s the purpose of that kid. My attention keeps it alive. Well, milk keeps the child alive, so attention is the milk. So I pay attention to the unlovely parts of my world and I wrestle with it; I steep myself in it morning, noon and night; and I am boiled in it. If I continue paying attention to what I do not want, I keep it live in my world. I am called upon to sacrifice it, but not to boil it in its mother’s milk. Well, I am its parent, I gave it birth. The unlovely thing in my world I gave it birth.

And so now as it erupts within the individual…the true meaning of these wonderful statements of the Old Testament…but they were all to be taken psychologically. Man did not realize he was living in a psychological world, in a world of Imagination. So he takes only one statement, that which would fit every man in the world. For any man worthy of the name looked upon woman and unveiled her in his mind’s eye and had an affair with her in his mind’s eye and that was the act. Now, he restrained himself because of his training. He was trained differently…that you cannot do these things. Or he might have been restrained based upon fear. He contemplated the consequences of his act and he restrained the impulse. But here comes one in whom it erupted, and he took the law and interpreted the law psychologically. They never heard that before. They thought if I restrain the impulse, well then, that’s enough. I can go through life every morning, noon and night unveiling every woman in the world and having in my mind’s eye an affair, and that’s alright, because I didn’t perform the act. Now that restraint could have been based upon fear, based upon cowardice, based upon contemplating the consequences and he didn’t want to be embarrassed in the presence of society. Numberless things could have restrained him. But he is told it is not enough…you performed the act at the moment that you imagined it…that’s when you did it.

So here, you take all the commands, every one. Not only those that are in the ten, but the one I’ve just taken in the 23rd chapter of Exodus: “Do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.” So all day long we are boiling the kid in the mother’s milk. We’re taking what we do not want in our world and paying all attention to it…that is the milk…and we are feeding it and keeping it alive. I should sacrifice that kid, which is the symbol of sacrifice, and take my attention away from it, and put it on something entirely different.

Now up to a point you and I are free to decide and to act, up to a point. The action is all imaginal. I decide now what I want to be and I name it. You decide you want to be the biggest in your profession or to be this, that and the other and you name it. Having made the decision, you only act mentally. It’s an imaginal act: You create the scene which would imply the fulfillment of that state, and you act it. At that moment you’re over; you do not devise the means to fulfill it, you simply act. At that moment then consequences take over and consequences then create a new situation which now demands from you, well, a new decision. Because, this is now a new challenge demanding of you a new situation, a new decision, a new act. And all you do is act. If you are honest with yourself, you will know after you have acted although you do play certain parts in the unfolding drama that you didn’t do a thing about devising the means. You meet this one automatically, this one by chance, this one so and so, and then it all adds up and what you acted upon comes to pass. The whole thing comes to pass.

But the minute it come to pass, then it confronts you with a new situation. Someone wants to be the biggest in the company, not knowing that it carries with it certain responsibilities. The minute he has assumed that he is now the head of the company he forgets the consequences of that position. But he acts upon it and he becomes the head. Then he is put aside as an individual and then that creates a new situation. And he who dreamed upon it never dreamed that when he got it he’d be confronted with all these problems upon which now he has to act. First he must decide and then act. He either resigns because he feels he can’t do it, or he believes he can do it. If he knows this law, he can do it because he will simply act as though he did it.

So he takes the law…he does not rub out the law. He said, “I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets. I came to fulfill them, not to abolish them.” So the plan is in the man, and that plan is not only to fulfill by reinterpreting the law of Moses, but he reinterprets the promise of the prophets. Because man was expecting a man to come to save him, and it isn’t a man who comes to save a man, it is a pattern, it is the gospel, it is the story. And the story is in man. He heard it and he believed it and that story is in man and then it erupts in man, and the entire drama concerning Jesus Christ unfolds in him. Outwardly he is the same man in the eyes of all of his friends and his relatives; and they will see a simple, simple man and wonder if he is mad because he is telling them what happened to him…that in him is Christ or the plan. But they thought Christ was a person, and Christ is the plan: “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation for all who have faith.”

Now he defines Christ as “the power of God.” Well, if Christ is the power of God as the same writer defines him in the first chapter of 1st Corinthians, now he defines him in the first chapter of Romans as “the gospel”—the gospel is “the power of God for salvation.” So here is the story…so I can tell you a story, the most incredible story in the world. You can’t top the story of Christ…that a man dies and rises, that a man is crucified and then he rises, and now sits at the right hand of power. He now sits with the Creator of the world and is one with the Creator of the world! That he actually unfolded within himself all the ___(??) and all the promises. He has granted unto us his precious and very great promises that through these we may actually become one with the divine nature.Well, the divine nature is God. I become one with it, or like it, no, one with it. By actually accepting this story, he transforms or re-fashions my lowly body to be of one form with his glorious body…and you rise.

Outwardly you’re the same being, and they know who you were. They think what you were you are, because they will not listen to what has happened within you.So you go to your little grave, and they will feel, alright, so another friend has gone and I miss him. They do not know the one who has gone while he walked among them he has completely awakened from the dream of life. That he believed the story and it actually germinated within him, it erupted within him, and everything said in the story of a being unfolded in him and he was that Christ. But they didn’t recognize him. For Christ is not a little person who lived long since and is now remembered only by those who hear the story…no, he’s a contemporary. You believed it. I heard it and all of a sudden when I least expected it I realized who he really is: He was a pattern. He was the pattern man; he was the semen of God, the germ of God, the seed of God. When I heard the story that was the Word and I was the land on which it fell because I heard it with acceptance (Mat. 13). As I believed it, I received it and then the whole thing germinates within me and then suddenly it erupts.

So here, you and I are free, yes up to a point. In the world of Caesar we can prove the same law. In the world of Caesar now I’m free this very moment to make a decision. Even if I don’t decide, that’s a decision…not to decide tonight. But you can decide, you say “I want to be”…you name it. When you name it then you must act. You act upon it…but you don’t act physically, you act mentally. The whole drama is in your Imagination. And so, I will now decide what I want to be, and in my Imagination I will act. That’s all I can do…that’s as far as I can go…then consequences will take over. Right from that moment they take over, and they will create a new situation. That new situation will then confront me with a new challenge, and that new challenge will demand of me a response that means another decision and another act. I go on and on and on that way.

If I don’t know the principle behind the whole thing, when I bring my dream into being I think that’s it. Today, many a person would say “If I only had $5,000, oh, I’d feel so free!” So they get $5,000; that never satisfies, they want 50,000. So they get 50,000 and that isn’t good enough. Why?—because you always move up…or mostly. So I can tell you of a friend of mine in New York City now. In the days of Vaudeville, he was an adagio dancer, strong, strapping…short fella but very strong. Then came the War and he was drafted. When he came out, he’d gone beyond the point where he could go back into the…and Vaudeville was gone anyway. He became a waiter, and he moved up to a maitre d’ in a nightspot in Greenwich Village. He began to come to my meetings and he heard what I am telling you. He said, “Now I’m going to apply it…if I could only have $5,000.” Well, in no time flat Victor got $5,000. The men came in, he was the maitre d’ and they gave him tips. Well, the market was rising, but don’t justify it that way. They gave him tips not only in dollars and cents because he gave them the best table and the best steak and this, that and the other, but they gave him tips on the market. In no time, Vic rose from his $5,000 that he got to $50,000, and finally Vic made a hundred thousand. He wasn’t satisfied…yet if he could only get $5,000 that would be all that he wanted…and Vic in no time got $100,000. At least it was right there; he could have sold and realized a hundred thousand.

The market went this way, and Vic went from $100,000 to $50,000. Then he got panicky. I said, “Have you forgotten the market…have you forgotten how this thing rose all in your consciousness?” So he went back and kept on again. But I can’t be there to remind him every second of time. When I go to New York he never misses a meeting, and there he is to be reminded. But must I call him and write him and ask how are things going? I can only tell the story: I tell you who Christ really is. Vic was born and raised in a very rigid Catholic Italian family and there’s still that conflict within him. I can tell him from now ’til the ends of time that Christ is a pattern, Christ is the pattern man. You’re a man…you don’t want to unfold within you a monkey…it’s not a pattern monkey, it’s a pattern man. And God is man. He’s making man in his own image, raising man to a higher level; and Christ is really a pattern, the pattern man. It’s buried in you. And now, if you really believe it! Believe the story as true of you…the most incredible thing in the world.

What’s incredible about it? Well, it’s this. It was God’s purpose to give himself to you, Vic, as though there were no other in the world. Just in the beginning God and you, and eventually when the gift was completed only you…that you are he. So whatever he was prior to his decision to give himself to you because he loves you, you must be when he completes the act of giving himself to you. Now listen to this Vic: “O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these believe that thou hast sent me. I have made known unto them thy name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which thou lovest me may be in them and I in them” (John 17:25, 26). That is the story. Now, what was the name he revealed? He revealed the name as “Father.” He said, “O righteous Father”…he addressed him as “Father.” Now I have made known unto them thy name and I will make it known, that the love”—and this is so true when John wrote these words—“that the love with which thou lovest me”…for I stood in the presence of infinite love and he embraced me and incorporated me into his body so that we may be one. Then, because I am in you and if they become one with you then I am in them. These are the last two verses of the 17th chapter of John, the most glorious chapter when you read this wonderful prayer. So Vic, believe that this is the Christ. The Christ is a pattern, it is a play, and one day you’ll be cast in the central role, the role of Christ.

Well, he almost wanted to cross himself, because he was standing in the presence of something that was blaspheming at the moment, and yet he loves me. But these are shocks that come to man. You’re raised this way. If I told an orthodox Jew tonight that when you refuse to take a little milk when you want milk because you are eating a piece of meat, that that is simply an outer concept of the law; and the Lord judges not from the outer but only from the inner (1 Sam. 16:7). That which goes into the belly does not defile; what proceeds out of the heart defiles. That I know and I am persuaded that there is nothing unclean in itself, but to anyone to whom a thing is unclean, to him it is unclean (Mk. 7:18; Rom. 14:14).

Tonight if I took these things literally, there would be few things that I really love that I could eat. I couldn’t take any shellfish, no shellfish if I took these things literally. I could never again have bouillabaisse. I could never have a clam chowder. But no shellfish or any fish without a scale like an eel. Well, that goes into a bouillabaisse. An oyster, I love an oyster. I love crab. I love lobster. These things are not allowed because they’re all taken literally. But you can take all the Commandments of scripture and if you spiritualize them, as we did this night concerning the boiling of the kid in its mother’s milk, you see an entirely different concept. But it took the eruption in man of that pattern to really understand what the prophet said, because they themselves did not understand the prophecy. As told us again in the works of Peter…that those who prophesied of the coming they inquired about it, but they were told that it was not for their time but for us…that we came into the time to understand, after the first eruption took place. So he erupted in one. Who?—he, the pattern erupted, erupted in a second, a third, a fourth, and now it is taking place in the whole vast world. May everyone here, in the not distant future, have that pattern erupt within you.

For the precious things of God, as you’re told, he’s granted unto us his precious and his very wonderful gifts to us, his promises. But I tell you, these precious and these very, very great promises cannot really be known until they’re actually experienced; until they act themselves out in the life of the individual person. When it happens in him, he knows there is no other Christ, there never was another Christ, that Christ is the gospel. “I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation.” The gospel is the power and you just said Christ was the power? And when I heard the word Christ, being trained and raised in a Christian home, I always thought of a person. So you say Christ is the power of God and now you tell me, the same writer, that the gospel is the power of God? You mean that Christ is the gospel? And he would say to me, “Yes, Christ is the gospel. That is the Christ, it’s the story, it’s the pattern, it’s the plan of salvation.” And so the whole thing is contained within me if I heard it believing it. I must first hear it and when I hear it, do I believe it, have I completely accepted it? If I have accepted it, well then, he is within me. In the normal time of germination it will erupt and everything said of him in the gospels happens in me, and I am cast in the central role…I am the star, the central actor. The whole thing is unfolding within me as my very being.

But on the level of Caesar know this much, you can decide tonight and having made your decision you act. Having acted you lose control at the very moment of acting, because circumstances will take over. They will take over and having taken over they’re going to create a new situation. That new situation will now confront you with a new challenge, and that challenge demands of you another decision and another act. So, you want to be the biggest businessman in the world or the biggest businessman in your community, and so you imagine that you are, and you act as though you were. You see friends seeing you as they would see you if you were. And then things happen…out of the nowhere people come with money…they do not know what to do with it. They do not have the talent or the desire to invest it, so they seek you out because they have confidence in you. You use their money and you become exactly what you have imagined that you are. But that’s not the end…more problems, more decisions. The minute you become that big then you can’t rest on your laurels, it means more and more decisions and more and more acts. But if you think you can rest, down you go…for this is life.

So in the world of Caesar we can be anything we want. We first decide and then we act in Imagination; and then that’s the end as circumstances take over. My brother Victor dreamed of being the biggest in the island. Well, he is the biggest, individually, but what headaches he has had since the beginning of his dream! None of his brothers know. Because I am not there constantly we have a more intimate relationship when I go home, and he will tell me what he wouldn’t tell those that he sees every day. First of all, he trusts them and loves them as brothers, but he can’t trust them in business, because he feels they know nothing. As far as he is concerned if he actually voiced his opinion…“I won’t fire you from your very expensive jobs because you’re my brothers, but I could replace you tomorrow with a far greater brain…but they aren’t my brothers.” That’s what he would tell them…because I know he’s implied that to me…but they’re brothers. And so I asked him one day, why don’t you give responsibility to my brother Cecil and to Fred and to Collin? He said, “I can’t. They’re not qualified to do it and I’ve done it so long before they came into the business, I don’t feel that they could do it. They’d lose the business.”

So here, what problems after he made his dream come true! Because the thing is still growing, he has to keep on acting and let it grow, and act and then let it grow. But when circumstances take over, what nights he hasn’t slept! A “good buy”…you get a cable from Australia, a ship is leaving, and it’s refrigerated. But you can’t get a refrigerated ship every day of life. There were so few many years ago, just one in, what, in hundreds. Well, coming that distance you couldn’t bring butter or meat unless you had a ship that was refrigerated. Well, suddenly in twenty-four hours he has to cable. If you can use fifty tons of butter or fifty tons of lamb, we have a buy. A fraction of a penny is the buy. A penny would be a fantastic buy, but say a half a penny in buying fifty tons. But they draw against you before the ship leaves the harbor of Australia, and it comes thousands of miles across the Pacific, through the Canal, into the Caribbean. Here, thousands of miles and therefore almost a month in coming. Well, they have your money before the ship leaves. Now where to move for a quarter of a million dollars, overnight, because it has to be paid out before the ship moves. He knows that when it arrives he will unload it at a great profit. It will take time, but the profit is there. But then you’re frozen and the mind is all a-sea. So he has lived that sort of a life. But he loves it. He likes dreaming noble dreams in business and then acting this way.

Now we love each other dearly and we have much in common; and yet so little in common when it comes to his passion in life which is business and my passion which is the Word of God. He thinks I am completely insane doing this with no returns when he gets such returns. But his returns are in the world of Caesar and he can’t take it with him; and my returns are in eternity and I take it with me. I don’t need any bank book when I leave here, because it is the power that you take with you…and here Christ is the power of God. Well, the gospel has completely awakened within me; I’ve experienced every aspect of the gospel. The gospel is described as “the power of God for salvation.” “I am not ashamed of the gospel,” said Paul, “It is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith.” Well, the whole gospel has awakened within me. You could take me now and actually let me tell you the story as I’ve tried to tell it and have tried to write it and that’s the story. Everything said in the story concerning his birth, with witnesses, with everything…where I can actually claim I am the Father because the Son called me Father…the only Son called me Father (Ps. 2:7). So the entire story has unfolded within me and I take that with me. And the story is the power of God. So when I move from this little garment and take it off, I am the power of God. I am one with the nature that is the divine nature.

But to Vic that doesn’t mean a thing. He will say to me, “Well, can you draw a check tonight and have it honored for x-number of thousands?” and I will say no. But you see he can. Well, I can’t blame him. He has had his dreams and he’s made them come true, so he has exercised this power on a certain level, on the level of Caesar. And I, fortunately, it erupted within me and exercises itself on an entirely different level.

So here tonight, let me tell you the story is true, true beyond the wildest dream of man. And when it erupts within you, you will spiritualize all the Commandments and they’ll make sense. You will not have to simply go along with any outside conformity; that you will not have to deny yourself this, that and the other at a table because you interpreted the law on a literal level in a certain manner. You will eat anything before you if it satisfies you. When I was a strict vegetarian for seven years, I went to Toronto and my friend who was our host, I was in her home, and she could ill-afford the meal that she put down that night, a lovely salmon. She really didn’t have much, in fact she had little, but I was her son’s friend in New York City and he worked for the New York Times. This night I was her guest for ten days in her home in Toronto and she had this lovely salmon. Well, I had never had salmon in seven years. I hadn’t eaten fish, fowl, meat, not even eggs. I knew I could not offend her and I knew I had to violate my pledge this night. And my old friend Abdullah told me years ago when I saw him eating all these things and I was not, he said, “It would poison you if you ate it, because you have quibbles. But you see, I can eat everything because I have no quibbles. But since you have quibbles, it will poison you.” Well, I sat down…and this lovely salmon…and all the others ate it. There were about eight around the table, all came to meet me. We all sat down to eat. That night I was as sick as a pup. I brought up my boots, but no one else did. I was self-poisoned. I did not eat this thing in seven years and I violated my pledge to myself, and I was poisoned on the most wonderful piece of salmon, fresh salmon. They all enjoyed it.

Well, this is life. And so tonight, if any orthodox Jew ate a piece of pork and knew he was eating it, he would be just as sick as I was that night, because it’s all in conflict with what he believes. So this is life. But the thing itself didn’t hurt you it’s the individual’s attitude toward it that hurts him. His attitude hurts him. So he said, “I’m told that there’s nothing unclean in itself, but any man who sees anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” You want that quote? It’s the 14th chapter, the 14th verse of Romans. It’s good to know that there’s not a thing in this world that is unclean in itself, but if you think it is, well then, you and your thoughts make it unclean.

You go through life this way. And everything will be lovely if you spiritualize the Commandments…starting off with the one that he picked in the Sermon on the Mount that you will read in the 5th chapter of Matthew: “You’ve heard it said of old, ‘You should not commit adultery.’ But I tell you anyone who looks lustfully upon a woman has already committed the act of adultery with her in his heart” (verse 27). Well, no one thought of that…that was spiritualizing the Commandment. They thought only the physical act was the act; and he shows them it was the mental act that was causation not physical. So if I do anything in my mind’s eye in my Imagination and get the thrill of having done it, like slapping someone in the face, if I do that and I feel it, well now, I’ve satisfied myself…as people will do that in their mind’s eye. They think, well, I didn’t do it physically, therefore they can’t arrest me. But now wait…that is causation. And then consequences will come into the world and create a new situation that you do not relate to that imaginal act. But that imaginal act caused the consequences and these in turn are now creating a new situation which will confront you with a new challenge, and you don’t relate the new challenge to that original act of yours when you did it, thinking yourself unseen, that no one sees me. Well, that is answered in the 8th chapter of Ezekiel. We think we’re all alone, the Lord doesn’t see us, he doesn’t care, and they went into the chambers of their mind and they performed the most beastly acts in their mind’s eye thinking they were unseen by anyone not knowing that the Lord sees all (verses 8-13).

So here, you start on this level and then you move into the most incredible story in the world. You hear it and you believe it, you accept it, and now it’s grafted upon you…the engrafted Word. Then suddenly one day it erupts and you are the central figure and then you know who Jesus Christ is.You look into the mirror the next morning at the same being. You shave the same being. You have all the limitations. Your bank account hasn’t grown any bigger, there’s no bigger deposit, the bills are still coming in…and yet you are Jesus Christ. You are the Lord Jesus Christ who brought the whole vast world into being! And here you don’t have one penny more than you had the day before in your deposit, confronted with all the problems in the world. And yet the whole pattern unfolded within you. No one can see it and few will trust you to the point of believing it, because they are still conditioned by a personal Christ, and you are not he.It is another being, painted like the great artists have painted. So depending upon your racial background you’ll say, “Show me them all, because there are about forty-six of them. Let me pick out the one.” Because there are at least forty-six in the library in New York City, I’ve seen them. So which one would I pick, the blond fella or the brunette or the other one? Because all of these are supposed to be authentic pictures of Jesus Christ…but certainly you are not among them. And so, because you are not among them, don’t give me that. I’ll pick one of these and hang him on the wall and still have an external Christ and know nothing of the true Christ that is buried within man as a pattern. It’s the story called the gospel which is called “the good news of God,” the “good news of redemption.”

So this year, just a matter of two weeks away one billion Christians will observe the day and know nothing of the mystery. That goes from the pope down, because he could not be saying what he is saying tonight that comes into the print giving his signature behind it and know the story. You could not be that deceitful. So I will say, forgive him one hundred percent because he doesn’t know. He’s elected to that position just as Mr. Nixon is elected to his position…it’s a political position under the mask of religion. So it’s a powerful land. Mr. Nixon will represent 202 million of us. The pope represents 500 million Catholics. It’s a far bigger empire, and like all empires they have tremendous responsibilities in the world of Caesar. And so I say he doesn’t know. If he knew, he would not be there. He would be possibly in the same faith, but a great theologian buried away, unknown.

Now let us go into the Silence tonight. Make a decision first, and when we go into the Silence, let us act upon it. I will not tell you what you ought to desire. You know what you want most in this world. Well then, having decided what you really want, then in the Silence act upon it. Create the scene which would imply that really you have it or are it, either one. When you come out and you break that Silence, know that it’s coming to pass, because you will find circumstances molding themselves without your help, which will then confront you with another challenge. Now let us go.

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Well, if there aren’t any questions, until next time. Thank you.