The Fourfold Gospel

Tonight’s subject is “The Fourfold Gospel.” As you know, for I think you do, the Bible is a mystery, a mystery to be known only by revelation. As I told you in the past, a mystery is not a matter to be kept secret but a truth that is mysterious in character. The four gospels are the plot of the entire Bible. Everything that was promised Israel as we have it recorded in the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament came into flower, into fulfillment, in the four gospels. But even to this day, two thousand years later, many are still seeking in the Bible for the Christ of whom the fathers spoke and whose coming they foretold. As we are told, “The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours inquired and searched about that salvation; they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory” (1 Peter 1:10).

Well, they could not find him. They were all looking for aman, and today the whole vast Christian world still turns to a man. And those who deny it think in terms of a man that they deny. They do not know the Christian mystery. So Paul made the statement, “From now on we’ll regard no one from the human point of view; even though we once regardedChristfrom the human point of view, we regard him thus no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16). Yes, even though I once thought of Christ from the human point of view, I think upon him so no longer; he is something entirely different.

To understand this mystery, we have to find the root, and that is in the Old Testament. What did they promise? The promise is in the eleventh chapter, the first three verses, called the Messianic book, one of the many chapters, but this one is prominent. “There shall come forth a stem from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of that root. And the Spirit of the Lord shall be uponhim.” The imagery turns from a root, from a branch, and from a stem into a man. And the Spirit of the Lord shall be upon him, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of the fear of the Lord—all these will be upon him. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear” (Isaiah 11:1-3).

So here, something is said about a branch. Something is said about a stump out of which this branch will come. So we search the scripture, and we find in the Book of Daniel: “And the king said: ‘I beheld the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven.’ And he cried aloud, ‘Hew the tree down, cut off its branches, strip its leaves, scatter its fruit. But leave the stump’” (Daniel 4:13). Do not disturb the stump. And now he turns from the imagery of the tree, with its branches, its leaves, and its stump, to that of a man. “Lethimbe watered with the dew of heaven”—speaking now of a stump, and it becomes now a man—“let him dwell with the beasts of the field; take from him the mind of a man and give to him the mind of a beast; and let seven times pass over him… until he knows the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will” (Daniel 4:15-17).

You ask, “What is it all about?” For this is a prophecy that is fulfilled in our gospels. The wordJessemeans I AM. It’s called the stump of Jesse. The word I AM is simply called Jehovah, the name of God. In its root meaning, it means “to fall” or causatively “to cause to fall.” The only being that fell, this tree of life, is God himself. And for us, God fell; he sacrificed himself to redeem us, to give us life in ourselves, and the mystery of life through death, the death of God. So this Branch, now, ___(??) and we begin to study the word branch in the Bible, for branch comes out of the stump of Jesse. The stump is I AM. The first presentation is Matthew, and Matthew presents the Lord as a king. So where is the Branch identified in the Bible as a king? We find it in the 23rdchapter, the 5thverse of Jeremiah: “And the days shall come where I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king.”

So here we find a presentation of this Branch, which is not a tree, for we see now it is a man. But he is presented as a king, so Matthew gives us the genealogy of a king. He comes down through the royal blood. But Matthew begins the book with “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David.” David is the source of the dynasty. The first king of Israel was Saul, chosen by the people, but Jehovah rejected Saul and chose David. David is the first king of Israel as chosen by God. So this is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David. When I trace the genealogy of a king, I always must begin at the source of the dynasty and come down and finish with the king. When I trace the genealogy of a man, I begin with his father and go back as far as I may. But not with a king; you do not say this is king ___(??) so and so, the son of so and so. You go right back to the source of the dynasty and then you bring him forward and it culminates in the king himself. That’s how you get the genealogy of a king. That’s what Matthew does in presenting the Lord as king to fulfill the 23rdchapter, the 5thverse of Jeremiah.

Mark presents him as a servant; therefore, there is no need for a genealogy—the perfect servant, the ideal servant. So God is now presented as a servant. And here, where is the Branch of the servant? The 3rdchapter, the 8thverse of Zechariah: “Behold, I will bring forth myservantthe Branch.” All this is prophecy. He hasn’t brought him forth; he’s bringing him forth, going to do it, by “bringing forth my servant the Branch.” So Mark does not have a genealogy. Who are you? Well, “I am the servant of the Lord.” That’s good enough. If you are the servant of the Lord, there’s no need for any further credentials. So his credentials are simply his position in life: he is the ideal servant. That’s Mark.

Now in the 10thchapter of Mark, he makes this statement, “I came not to be served but to serve.” He is the servant in Mark. Luke presents him as the ideal man, Jehovah’s man. Where is the Branch concerning him? Again in Zechariah, the 6thchapter, the 12thverse. First of all, Isaiah claims it in the fortieth chapter, “Behold, the man,” but he doesn’t use the wordBranch. But Zechariah, to fulfill the prophecy, brings in the Branch: “Behold the man whose name is the Branch.” So Luke presents him—the ideal manshouldhave a genealogy—so Luke presents him as man. When you read the two genealogies of Matthew and Luke, they differ. At the beginning of David the king, they part and David’s older son, Nathan, becomes the line through which Luke takes Jesus Christ. His younger son, Solomon, becomes the one through whom he takes the one bringing him into a king.

So here, you find a complete different genealogy for fourteen generations, then another fourteen following that. Here you have these many, many generations where there are entirely different backgrounds; and people think you can’t be telling the story of the same person, but people don’t know the mystery. You’re presenting not a person; you’re presenting not a man, but you’re presenting something that is altogether different. Christ is notaman,aking,aservant; Christ that saves is a series of mystical experiences through which God reveals himself for the salvation of man. That’s Christ.

The whole vast New Testament is based upon the assumption that a certain series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. Did they happen? Now we are told in scripture that they happened. I claim that the evangelists were telling their own story, as told us in the end of Luke: “And they told what had happened” (Luke 24:35). As Moffatt takes that phrase and describes it and translates it, “They related their own experiences.” They are relating a series of mystical happenings in the soul of the individual where God revealed himself in these actions for the salvation of that individual. So Luke presents God as the ideal man: “Behold, the man whose name is the Branch”—6thchapter, 12thverse of Zechariah. He must have a genealogy, and this goes all the way back, unbroken, back to Adam, the son of God.

John, on the other hand, presents him as God himself—no need of a genealogy, none. And this you find in the 4thchapter, the 2ndverse of Isaiah, “And the day is coming”—and the day is always in the future, for this is all prophecy—“when the branch of Jehovah will be beautiful and glorious.” All this is in the future, and men are still looking for this branch to flower in some mighty conqueror who will come and save humanity from the tyrants loose in the world. And he doesn’t come that way. So they denied he was a king because they did not read carefully: “My kingdom isnotof this world.” They are still expecting him to, in some way, entrench himself in the world and establish a kingdom and rebuild what they believed to be David’s kingdom. And all these must be spiritualized. All the characters mentioned as his background, his genealogy, arestatesofconsciousness, all of them.

Here, it begins: “This is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David”; the very end of the genealogy, Joseph’s father is called Jacob, that seventeenth verse (Matthew 1:1-16). A few verses on, on the 20th verse, the angel of the Lord appears unto Joseph in a dream and says, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take unto thyself Mary thy wife.” Three verses before, it is stated in the genealogy that his father was Jacob. And along the way, just a few verses down, the angel of the Lord addresses him as Joseph, son of David. Here, in the genealogy, Joseph is called “the father,” and the genealogy begins with Jesus Christ, son of David. Don’t you see it? You’ve got to spiritualize all of these characters. They are states of consciousness; they are not persons any more than Jesus Christ is a person. Jesus Christ is that series of events unfolding, like a tree, in man for the salvation of that man in whom this series unfolds. That is Jesus Christ. And man cannot think that way if he wants to personify it and put it on a wall, put it in some little hole, and do something with it. And it isn’t that.

So here we find the presentation of God as a king in Matthew, the presentation of God as a servant in Mark, and the presentation of God as the perfect ideal man in Luke and God himself in John. So in John, he speaks and calls himself constantly I AM. “I am the vine. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the resurrection. I am the door.” All through he is emphasizing who hereallyis—the being thatyouare. But the series of events, I promise you, will unfold within you. When they unfold within you, you know who you are. And you could no more keep it to yourself than the evangelists who experienced Christ could have kept it to themselves. They couldn’t if they experienced it. Having experienced Christ, they could not keep their experience of Christ to themselves, so they tell it.

Now, let me show you what Luke tells us in his own way. Why they translated it this way, I don’t know. Luke begins his book: “In as much as many have undertaken to assemble a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, as it was revealed to us by those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning, it seemed good to me also, having observed closely for some time past.” Now that phrase “for sometime past” is a translation of the Greek wordAnothin, which means “from above.” When it is used in the third chapter of John, it is used “from above.” It is said to Nicodemus, “You must be born from above. Except you be born from above, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” (John 3:3). Yet here, in the Book of Luke, the same word, no alteration, the identical word is translated into this phrase “for sometime past.” So he’s telling you, if you go back to the original tongue where he got it. “Having observed all things closely from above, it seemed good to me also to write an orderly account for you, Theophilus—one who loves God—that you may know the truth concerning these things of which you have been informed.”

He’s writing it down for all of us who claim we love God, for we are Theophilus, a lover of God, one who seeks God. He’s telling you where he got it. He is not making any claim that his arrangement is a greater chronological arrangement of the source material. What he’s telling us is God is from above, and he’s going to write it in an orderly arrangement, which he claims this arrangement is better, better understood by man; for he begins with a birth and he ends, for man’s sake, with a crucifixion. That’s not the way in which Luke got it. For Luke is not his name—all this is anonymous—but whoever calls himself Luke did not receive it in that order. But he thinks it’s a better arrangement to be understood by mortal minds until they, themselves, have the experience.

So what the gospels are telling us, believe this, believe it for the works’ sake. Then he tells us how to prove the law of God, and in proving the law of God, you may believe his promise. Then he tells us what to do about the law of God. “Ask anything in my name”—but don’t forget my name; my name is I AM—“and it will be done unto you.” Ask anything in my name and it will be done unto you, but my name is I AM. But don’t call it by any other name. And when you calluponmy name, callwithmy name. Don’t call upon it, for I have no other name. So don’t say, “In the name of I AM”; just prepare yourself to be “I am.” Now, I am what? You name it. Whatever you want to be, just name it. But call with my name; don’t call upon my name. So call, I am healthy, I am wealthy, I am known, and I am anything that you think lovely in your world. Call upon it by callingwiththe name.

Then he tells them, “I have come to testify of things that I know and that I have seen. If you will not receive the testimony that I bring you of things of earth, how may you receive the testimony of mine if I tell you of things of heaven?” Now, let me give you a vision of mine that happened many, many years ago to show you it was revealed to me long before it began to awaken in me. Just like the vision of the fourth of Daniel, only in my case it wasn’t a tree. But just as he starts off the vision, “the visions of my head as I lay in bed,” suddenly I saw this fabulous field, and consciousness followed vision. I entered the field. It had no limit; it was infinite. At first I thought them to be flowers, long, tall flowers, like sunflowers, huge, big flowers. As I approached them, they were not flowers. They were all rooted like a flower into the earth, but the faces, beautiful faces, human faces—everyone was a face. As I came upon them, they moved in concert as though someone led them in some orchestra. And they all moved; if one bent over, the whole vast field of them bent over; if one smiled, they all smiled. They all did everything in concert.

When I walked among them, admiring the beautiful human faces that were anchored and stationary like a flower, I realized right at that moment that I am not comparable to them in beauty, nothing in that rhythm, and yet I enjoyed greater freedom, limited as I was, than all of them put together. They moved in concert, and I had freedom of movement even though my motion was not in harmony. I had freedom of choice even if I made the wrong choice. I could choose evil, and they could do nothing. They could do nothing but move as some invisible power moved them. They could do nothing of themselves. And I realized that with all of my limitations, I was greater. I could make mistakes, and they couldn’t make a mistake. I could actually move without the consent of another, and they couldn’t do it. And beautiful as they were, I realized how much infinitely greater I was, limited as I was, because I was detached from that field.

And I thought, in the depths of me, that at one time, I must have been one of that orchestra. And God in his infinite mercy fell with me and then took up residence in me. Then seven times had to pass over me, the fiery ordeal. I had to be given… this is a human face… “take the mind of man from him and give him the mind of a beast. Let him now live with the beasts of the field, sever everything from him, cut off the branches, strip the leaves, scatter the fruit, but don’t disturb the root.” And the root is God himself; that’s Jesse. But “seven times will pass over him until he knows that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” He gives it in that moment that he gives us Christ, and Christ is that series of mystical experiences taking place in the individual’s soul for that soul’s salvation.

I can see that field of flowers now. Perfectly beautiful human faces, not a blemish, everything perfect and everything moving in this perfect rhythm as some invisible director directed them, and they all moved in concert. So you and I were once part of that harmony, and then the harmony became broken for our salvation. We descended becauseGoddescended with us; he doesn’t push us out. The wordHe Vau Hemeans “to fall,” and that is the root of the verb that we have as Yod He Vau He, which we call Jehovah, the great sacred name, the name by which all things are made.

So here, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John present this mystery of the branch; and I tell you, it grows in us. As Blake said, “The gods of the earth and the sea sought through nature to find this tree, but their search was all in vain; there grows [one] in the human brain.” And that tree is turned down. If you saw the human being and take off the skin and see just the nervous system, it’s just like an inverted tree, where the brain is the root and the whole tree grows down. But that tree is going to be turned up. One day, you’ll see it turned up. There will be a complete severance of your being, called “the curtain of the temple,” and thenyouthat were living down, not even knowing it, that it turns right up. And all the currents of eternity are now reversed in you, and you’ve turned up, and from then you grow up.

And the vision I had of this many years ago startled people. I first told it in San Francisco. Why, the reaction was horrible. Yet, the Book of Mark, speaking of the servant of the Lord, who is the Branch, speaks of it. When the blind man’s eye was opened, the Lord opened the eye of the blind man; he said, “What do you see?” He said, “I see men like trees walking.” There it is, “I see men like trees, walking” (Mark 8:24). This night when I had this vision of the majesty of man when he is turned up, you will think, “How could I be a tree?” but I am telling you, such beauty, and such joy when you see it! Something altogether different, but how could you describe it? You can’t describe it to the satisfaction of anyone because who wants to be a tree? And yet here inverted and we’re called the branch; don’t forget it: “And there shall come forth a stem from thestumpof Jesse”—from the stump of I AM—“and a branch shall grow out of its root, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, and the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Isaiah 11:1). Fear, by the way, means reverence of the Lord, the awe of God, not fear as we understand it.

Again, these same four, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it is revealed to us in a strange way when the child is given a name. This is now the 9thchapter of the Book of Isaiah: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given”—two entirely different experiences, a child is born, a son is given—“and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called ‘Wonderful Counselor.’” Don’t put a comma between Wonderful and Counselor as so many Bibles have. Bear in mind that there were no punctuation marks in the ancient Hebrew, none whatsoever, not even breaks as paragraphs, just all continuous. And they put a comma in between Wonderful and Counselor. It is not. There are four names given, in keeping with the fourfold gospel: “His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” the four titles.

Wonderful Counselor, that’s omniscience itself. You could ask nothing of a being who is completely awake that would not have the automatic answer, for there is omniscience. Mighty God, divine omnipotence. And here, Everlasting Father, Father forever. That’s when the Son is given; that’s when the third title comes. And then, Prince of Peace; that’s at the very end, when you are about to take off the garment for the last time, as told us in the Book of John: “And my peace I leave with you; not as the world giveth give I unto you” (John 14:27). He gives a peace that is beyond understanding. You can’t disturb that peace, for he’s the Prince of Peace. He is an Everlasting Father; he is Father forever. When you see me, said he, you see the Father, Father forever. Almighty God, a might beyond the wildest dreams of anything you’ve ever seen. And when you see that might, you see it personified as a man. Look into his eyes, and you see might like you’ve never known might before, and it is man. And then Wonderful Counselor, so he promises to send us the Counselor. When he withdraws, he will send to those who have the understanding to follow him as he revealed what happened in him.

So when you read the gospels, whether it be Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, do not see a man walking through the pages. See the great mystery of Christ the Branch unfolding in you. And it takes root. There must come out a root from that stump. It takes root. How does it take root? Well, you first hear the story and you believe it, then the Word is planted. As one believes it, he’s accepted the Word. The Word he translates in the Book of John, called logos, that’s, “In the beginning was the Word”—that’s the Greek logos—“and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That’s really the translation of the Hebrew Dabar, which means “the Word of God which contains within itself the power of its own expression.” That Word in the Book of John, the first verse, is Christ: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Now turn to the 55thchapter of the Book of Isaiah: “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return unto me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and fulfillthatwhere I sent it” (verse 11). So the word when it comes, it’s the word called Christ. I tell you the story. Believe it. The minute you believe it, you’ve accepted it; it has fallen on fertile ground. It will then take root, and the Word contains within itself the power of its own expression. And the whole vast program of God for man’s salvation is contained in that Word, the seed. It falls upon man; man hears it. He either believes it, or he rejects it. And so here, we move across the world, and seven times pass over us until one day, we hear it with acceptance; and then the little root takes place in that stump of Jesse, the stump of I AM. Then out of it comes the Branch, and then the Spirit of the Lord descends upon him. From then on, it moves and you can’t stop it.

So you can’t earn it. Accept it. Believe the story as it was intended when it was first written, completely misunderstood through the centuries. It told us of a certain individual who was born in a strange way and raised in a strange way and died a horrible death. But that’s not the story at all. If I would comfort you with a death, the 6thchapter of the Book of Romans should comfort you. For here in this sixth chapter we are told that “if we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (verse 5). He uses the past tense when it comes to death and the future when it comes to resurrection. If wehave beenunited with Christ in death like his, then weshall beunited with him in a resurrection like his. So the unity took place in his death, for he fell and all of us are in it. Now he’s asking us for acceptance through the Word. We have union with him in a death like his; we shall have union with him in a resurrection like his. He resurrects us one after the other by this series of fantastically wonderful mystical experiences, one after the other. And you can’t contrive them; they come like a thief in the night when you least expect them, one after the other. So everything said in the gospels concerning the central figure is all about you, everything, from the beginning to the end.

But I tell you, the death has already taken place. But even though the deathtookplace, for the tree has fallen, it’s been felled: “Hew down the tree, cut off the branches”—that’s all over—“strip the leaves, scatter the fruit, give him the mind of a beast.” Well, haven’t we the mind of a beast? Go back twenty years, what beast in the world would have conceived of ovens to burn innocent people by the millions? Isn’t that the mind of a beast? Have you read here recently the current stories of Stalin? The things the man did to those, even the most intimate circles, that no one felt at ease in his presence. Molotov down to all like little children, shaking, every one of them. This came up last Sunday in the SundayTimes, in yesterday’sObserver, in today’sNew York Times, for I get that every day, and all these stories because today is the tenth anniversary of his death. Here was the strangest—call it a beast; there is no beast that would have done the things the man did to his own people. He hated everything in the world. And so did Hitler, who hated everything. And so take the man’s mind from him and give him the mind of a beast. Who gave the order? God. And this is the order from on high.

Now in the eyes of the world, they seemed to be so far advanced because they were so powerful in the exercise and misuse of power. They are on the down; they’re descending. They have… seven times must pass over this mind of a beast before it could accept the story of Christianity. Both rejected it. Both called it foolish, that the whole thing was stupid. The opiate of humanity, said one, quoting his master Karl Marx, and the other looked upon Christianity as the weakest thing in the world. Christ to him was simply nothing but a weakness because he couldn’t kill. He said, “Put up the sword… and turn the other cheek… and Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

And so here you see the beast of beasts, and it was all at God’s command. “Take from him the mind of a man and give him the mind of a beast, and let his lot be among the beasts. But do not disturb the root. Leave that stump and let it be watered with the dew of heaven.” And then there’s a reversal; it just suddenly appears, and all of a sudden, the stump puts out a shoot. It can’t put out the shoot until it first heard the Word of God. So we’re told, “Go and tell the Word, and it must start in Jerusalem and spread to Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Go and tell it. And some will accept it and some will reject it. But those who reject it, all right, because seven times has not passed over.

And what are the seven times? Read the 3rdchapter of the Book of Daniel, and “heat the furnaces seven times more than they were wont to be.” And then comes the three Hebrew boys, and they are put into the furnaces, clothed. And then the king said, “Were there not three?” They answered yes. “But I see four… and the fourth has the form of a Son of God” (verse 24). So here there were four, not three. Three were put in, the threefold man, the three-dimensional man, but goes with them the fourth, God himself. For the fourth ___(??) is God himself altogether. When they came out, not even with the smell of fire, their hair was not singed, and not even the smell of fire upon their garments. Then he, Nebuchadnezzar, worshipped the God of Israel, worshipped the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Here, this whole thing is a mystery to be unfolded in the simple way it began: by telling you that Christ of the scripture is unfolding inyouin a series of events, revealing to you your salvation. So not only before, ___(??), for Peter in his epistle said that the prophets saw how they searched and inquired about this grace that was to be yours, and how they inquired about this salvation; and asked him what persons, what time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within him when prophesying and predicting of the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory (1 Peter 1:10). But they didn’t find him. They couldn’t find the Christ of whom they wrote and whose coming they foretold. They couldn’t find him because they were looking foraman. And today they are still looking for a man and looking for a time. They think maybe l963 will bring him, 1964, and all through the ages, people have thought of just a moment in time was the coming of Christ, or the coming of a person. And he doesn’t come that way.

He comes in you. And when you have him, you share him with everyone who will listen. But many will say because they know you so well, “But don’t I know him? Isn’t he Mary’s child and his father named George? Doesn’t he work in a factory with me? I know him. What’s he talking about?” And so they expect an entirely different kind of person to come. They don’t expect this garment to have within it an experience that no mortal man possibly could ever have. And it all happensinthe man, in the depths of the soul of the man. Then he goes back, and he sees where it was all foretold, but naught could he himself foresee. It was all there, but he couldn’t really dig it out any more than the scholars can, until it happens.

After it comes to the surface in him and he’s bewildered, when the dust settles so that he can really talk about it without excitement, a few will listen and a majority will turn their backs. And they’ll say, that poor fellow. He used to be so normal, used to be a very normal person. Used to tell me how to get a better job, and I used to get the job. He used to talk about how to get enough money, and I got the money. I went to the track and made $84,000. I went to the track and made $54,000. Went out ___(??), and I met all kinds of things. But now he’s talking of stranger things. He’s talking about a Christ I never heard of before. I’d rather have my old Christ because to him I can kneel and to him I can say a prayer in thehopethat he will have compassion on me and respond. ButthisChrist, a series of mystical experiences in the soul of man, where the whole tree unfolds? And suddenly the tree fell down and turns around, and then the whole thing goes up right back into the great stump itself, the skull of man; and from then on, it begins to really grow?

And then he knows what the glory is that Paul spoke of, for there is laid up for me in heaven a crown of glory. But he himself grows it; no one puts it upon him. It’s a living crown, but not a crown as the human eye sees when they see the queen’s crown. This is entirely different, arealcrown. Do you know of any crown comparable to the antlers of a stag? Have you ever seen such majesty in your life when you see this beautiful thing? Did you ever see such majesty as a tree in full bloom? No. Don’t even try to visualize it when I tell you. The writer of the Book of Mark could see it correctly: “What do you see now with the eye open?” “I see men like trees walking.” Don’t even try to visualize it because it frightens people.

But believe the story as I told you this night concerning Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John: the fourfold man you are. One presents you as a king to fulfill the 23rdchapter of Jeremiah. For he said, “I have come to fulfill the scripture. Scripture must be fulfilled in me. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). It’s all about this being that you are. And then comes the presentation of the ideal servant: “Behold, my servant the Branch”—the 3rdchapter of Zechariah. “Behold, the man, the Branch, whose name is the Branch”—the 6thchapter of Zechariah (verse 12). Then comes the fulfillment of the 4thof Isaiah. For all must be fulfilled, and so these four branchesmusttake root and all grow and mature in man. So here you have the king, the servant, the ideal man, and God himself.

Now don’t neglect the use of the law, even though it will never justify you before God. You have the law. Now let us go into the Silence and use the law wisely by assuming that we are the man, or the woman, that we really want to be. Try to persuade ourselves in this short interval of a minute that we reallyarethis being. And if you believe it, that’s another form of the word that now cannot return unto you empty but must accomplish that wherein you sent it. By assuming that you are, you have sent it on its way, and you’ll be transformed into the likeness of your assumption. Now let us go.

Q:   (inaudible)

A:   To me it’s ___(??), but I do not go for that. So Adam is supposed to be the beginning of just the most primitive concept of what man could be. But it goes back to Adam and you can’t break the line because God creates it. And so it has to go through the flower ___(??) by Jesus, right straight back to Adam, the most primitive concept, the dust itself. For he’s of dust, and to dust he will return. So Luke gives it through the physical line. Yet Nathan, the wordNathan, who is to come, is “gift.” But Nathan, you see is the third son; and in the Bible, it is always given to the second. It’s all this reversal of order. So Esau was denied, and Jacob was given; Manasseh denied, and Ephraim was given; and all through we have this first denial and the second accepted.

So Solomon was the second. But in Solomon we have, by tradition, a king; Nathan, by tradition, was simply a good man. He was a gift. Not Nathaniel. Nathaniel was a “gift of God.” But this is simply Nathan, just “gift.” And so through this gift, for this [body] is a gift. And he clothed me in the Spirit in a garment of flesh, called in the Bible skin. He made skin for me. So he made a skin for the first Spirit, called Adam. And that’s the line that Luke gives it, and then there were seventy-five before it flowered in Christ Jesus.

Q:   (inaudible)

A:   “I am Mary and birth to Christ must give if I in blessedness for now and evermore would live.” She gave birth to Christ Jesus, and Christ Jesus is aseriesof wonderful mystical experiences by which God revealed himself in action for thesalvationof man. So then the one in whom these experiences take place must be Mary, for in him the experiences called Christ Jesus are taking place. So she is blessed and the womb is blessed because she gave birth to the savior of the world. But everyone in whom it takes place is Mary because Christ is eternal and the same being is unfolding in everyone. Everyone will be Mary when it happens.

Q:   (inaudible)

A:   My dear, it is called election. But I must confess I do not know the mystery of God’s election. I am convinced that not one can fail, as told us in that same 11thchapter of Isaiah that I quoted tonight, “None is lost in all my holy mountain,” no, not one. Therefore, not one can really be lost becauseGodwould be lost. He himself fell for our salvation. He actually is the tree of life commanding himself to fall, and then we are redeemed by his fall—the mystery of life through death. So we are called one by one. But I could not tell anyone… in fact, that question was asked and answered in the 1stchapter of the Book of Acts: “It’s not for you to know the times or the place, but only the Father.” So men are asking, “Well, when will it happen to me?” No one has this power to see the root or the branch. The root must take place from this stump—acceptance must be there—and then the branch will come out. And the branch will bear the fruit of these experiences.

But who can see it? And so when they tell you they can see it and they see auras and see all these things, well, let them believe it. I can look at you and see auras, but that hasn’t a thing to do with it. But the ancient prophets of this world instead of looking at it, look through it, and you’ll see it’s man, and you’ll see it a circle of light. Don’t look at it, just look in it and beyond it. It’s no great problem but simply a change the focus, that’s all. Try it. It’s very easy. __(??) on the bathroom floor and all these little tiles. Don’t look at them, just look in them and beyond them, and they will all enlarge. You’ll find clarity you’ve never known before between your vision and what you’re seeing ___(??). But that doesn’t mean what I’m talking about tonight. It has not a thing to do with the Spirit. But there are those who teach it, and these others taught it; that’s not my cup of tea. This is truth. The Bible is truth, but it’s a mystery. The Old Testament contains the entire promise of God: the four chapters, the four books—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—that’s the fulfillment, complete fulfillment. The rest are commentaries on the fulfillment.

Any other questions, please?

Q:   God is my own consciousness and awareness of the being that I am, is that right?

A:   Yes, my dear. He actually became you that you may become him. He actually became you. For God to become you, he would have to fall. He wouldhaveto fall.Infinitytook on a finite mortal state. Here is immortality becoming mortal; that which is forever becoming something that’s sentient so that which is finite may become as he is. So God became man that man may become God. That’s the great mystery.

Until Friday.