The Marks of Jesus

Tonight’s subject is “The Marks of Jesus.” Next Friday we will take “Inner Talking.” But this week because Christendom speaks of it as Holy Week, I thought I would take this subject tonight, “The Marks of Jesus.” Paul said, “Henceforth let no one trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of Jesus.” Paul had attained to an assured “I know,” no longer to walk by pure faith but by experience.

Paul experienced in his body the entire drama of Jesus Christ. You can say of him he is Jesus Christ, and you can say it of everyone who bears the marks of Jesus. And everyone will bear the marks of Jesus. So he was very critical about just what we’re doing today after 2,000 years…we’re now celebrating a holy week and holy days. This coming Thursday will be Maundy Thursday where the pope will wash feet of a few, and others will simply do the same thing. Many ministers will do it. Then comes Sunday, which is Easter. And were you in New York City on Easter, if the day permits, but even in the most inclement weather in the world, you will see hundreds of thousands of people parading their finery, coming out of their churches, one dressed more expensively than the other; then others, advertising all kinds of things. At the same time all the pickpockets in the world are out. That’s the holy day. And all the cops disguised as detectives, all people in civilian clothes, to protect these who are simply displaying their finery. But every pickpocket in the East you’ll find them right there on Fifth Avenue this coming Sunday that is the holy day.

So Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, made the statement, “You observe days and months and seasons and years! I am afraid I have labored over you in vain” (4:10). For he knew if you started one day as a holy day, set it apart, you wouldn’t stop there, you’ll go on to a second day and a third, and finally you’ll make it a week. Then you’re going to have a month. Then you’re going to have a holy season, then a holy year. A few years ago we had what was called a Marion Year that was a holy year, something apart. Just as much misfortune befell humanity, as much stealing, and horrors of the world in that holy year. So, Paul knew what man would do if he started to make something outside of himself holy.

So tonight, we speak of the marks of Jesus, and Paul claimed he bore them in his body. One translation has it, “He bore them on his body.” But the preposition in or on both are correct. But I would say “in” I prefer. As he said: “When it pleased God to reveal his Son in me, then I conferred not with flesh and blood. For the gospel that I preach was not given to me by a man, nor was I taught it by a man, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:15; 1:11). So the whole story unfolded in Paul and he could actually say “I know!” I’m not speculating, I know! I’ve experienced this mystery.

So here, we will take for this coming Friday, which I will not touch on Good Friday, the story of, speaking on an entirely different subject, “Inner Talking.” But, this coming Friday it will be three hours. I recall a few years ago, I went to the bank between the hours of twelve to three in Beverly Hills. I go there once a week and twice a week, and I knew the guard well; so when I got in there at one he said to me, “Why aren’t you in church?” And he meant it! He was serious about it…he was being a very holy, holy person. Coming to a bank…yet the employee too, and every one in the bank, they were clothed for one purpose only, for a showcase. For a bank has but one purpose in this world: to make money. When the sun is shining they loan you an umbrella and call for it when it starts to rain. And they all do it, all over the world, that’s the policy of a bank; they’re only for one purpose, to make money. And so, he is giving me a lecture, “Why aren’t you in church?” And he, representing as a guard at the bank, didn’t know a thing, not the slightest thing about the crucifixion.

So when Paul speaks of bearing the marks of Jesus upon his body and in his body, he is not speaking of any stigmata. For I’ll tell you from experience there is no blood flowing from the hands, no blood from the skull, no blood from the feet, and no blood, in spite of all churches, from the side. It’s the most delightful experience in the world! He said, “I have come only to fulfill scripture” and so, the 42nd Psalm is the fulfillment. One night…it started last Sunday, that was called the entrance into Jerusalem…and “I went with the throng and led them in gay procession into the house of God” (verse 4). Well, that’s into Jerusalem, the house of God, and Jerusalem is within you. That is ___(??), above you, your wonderful skull. And here, there were glad shouts and sounds of thanksgiving. And then he spoke of this festival, a multitude keeping festival. And that’s true, an enormous multitude, all dressed in the most colorful clothes, and you do go and you lead them in procession to the house of God. They’re all looking for a king, but a voice, a voice of authority, describes the king not to their liking. It describes a quite different king, and they do not like the king that the voice describes. They are looking for a king who would save their souls and lift them high. The voice describes the king that has no pomp, no pomp and circumstance, no earthly origin of royalty, something entirely different, a king that is a King of kings that is God himself. The voice describes this King of kings as one who so loved you that he laid himself down within you to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream. He’s dreamed, yes, he’s dreaming that he’s you. That is the entrance into Jerusalem.

And the same night that he leads them in procession into the house of God is the night of his crucifixion—not separated by any six days as the so-called Holy Week commemorated—that very night, when the voice describes this King of kings who sleeps in you as God.Then you actually will feel the sensation of being nailed to this body and your hands become vortices, your head a vortex, your side a vortex and you feet vortices. I can’t describe in words and I can’t convey to you the emotion that accompanies this act but it’s sheer ecstasy…no pain…sheer, sheer ecstasy.

So, this leading into the holy city, called Palm Sunday, and the crucifixion, they are two supernatural events that take place the same night. And they precede by years the great resurrection, not by simply a few days as we’re going to celebrate it this week; for we’re going to celebrate the resurrection on Sunday and we tell of the entrance last Sunday. We’re going to tell of the trial this coming Friday, the washing of the feet this coming Thursday, doesn’t come so at all. And so, these two events—separated as we keep it alive by almost a week—come the same night. Then years later, the marks of Jesus begin to appear in your body, and that begins with the resurrection. That’s the first great mark…when you awake within yourself to discover the whole thing is about you. When you break the shell, your own skull, and roll that stone away, and you come out, and you are born, born from above, that’s another mark. All these marks follow one after the other until you come to the very end or the seal of approval of the Holy Spirit.

Now we are told in scripture, the disciples did not understand anything that he did until after the resurrection. So, he washed their feet and said to them, “What I am now doing you do not know, but you will understand afterwards” (John 13:7). That understanding did not come until the marks began to appear in them. For, said he, “I tell you what I know and bear witness to what I have seen; and you do not receive my testimony. If I tell you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ever ascended into heaven but he who descended, the Son of man” (John 3:11-13).

And so what does it mean to us? What did he tell them of the earth that they could not and would not believe? It is answered in the drama that we are going to celebrate this coming Friday. One said to him, “Are you a king?” and he answered Pilate, “You say that I am. Do you say this of your own accord, or do you say it because others told you about me?” (John 18:34). And then he said, “For this purpose I was born and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice” (John 18:37). Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” Didn’t answer. He turned to the crowd, he said, “I find no crime in this man. But you have a custom, at the Passover one man is released to you; shall I release the King of the Jews?” And they said, “No, not this man, but Barabbas!” Then he adds, “And Barabbas was a robber.”

Here is the king that is sound asleep in man. Can you release him? You can’t release him; he’s not yet awake. Can’t release that because mortal mind, mortal eye cannot see him. They don’t know who he is. They’re looking for him coming from without. It doesn’t come that way at all. He tells you his kingdom is not of this world, it has not earthly __(??). It doesn’t come with any pomp and circumstance, no fanfare whatsoever, no proud, strange, earthly aristocracy. For when these marks begin to appear within you—-and I’ll tell you now and I’ll prophesy for you—-you’ll meet no one on the face of this earth before whom you will bend a knee. You will see no one, regardless of claims of society, claims of country, that you will think for one second a member of the true aristocracy. You will recognize no aristocracy except the aristocracy of the Spirit. But no one by the actions of physical birth could in any way cause you to ___(??) when you begin to bear the marks of Jesus in your body. It’s the only aristocracy in the world, the aristocracy of the Spirit.

So here, he’s on trial. Trial where? As it will be reenacted this year? No, that’s not the trial. That comes now into this level, when they begin to discuss the releasing of a man called Barabbas who was a robber. Barabbas was a robber. And here is one, the King of kings but not of this world, and they want Barabbas released. It’s a good statement. It’s a very wise request. Release Barabbas, but don’t release the Savior of the world. Well, what would save me tonight? If I discover him within me and he laid himself down within me to dream—as he told me that he did—-well, these are not words I read in a book, these are not the words that I ever heard from the lips of any man who walked the face of this earth, these came directly to me when I led this crowd in this gay procession into the house of God, and the voice described the king that no one was looking for, an entirely different king. Then the voice said he laid himself down within me to sleep, and as he slept he dreamed a dream—-and I knew exactly the end of that sentence—-he’s dreaming that he’s me. That’s when I felt the great vortices that nailed me to this body.

But, they laughed at it. They laughed at the possibility of this king. They laughed at the possibility that he could be in me. And when the voice said, “Yes, in the act of waking,” she became hysterical, the one who was at my right became hysterical, could not for one second believe it. To come down to this stage, well, she couldn’t believe it. So this crowd was asked. If I had not become emotional and found myself nailed and jumped from the state of the procession into the crucifixion, I would have heard the entire drama…”Release Barabbas.”

Well, Barabbas…tonight if I am in search of a goal and I’m not quite attaining it, if I have an objective, if I have a goal and I’m not attaining it, I must release Barabbas. Who’s Barabbas? That state of consciousness that tells me I am not now the man I want to be. For Jesus Christ is the answer…he is the yes to all God’s promises. So God promised me, whatever I desire, believe that I have it, and I will (Mark 11:24). That’s his promise. So I will assume that I am the man that I want to be. Reason denies it and my senses deny it. As I accept the evidence of my senses and not that which I am assuming that I am, then I am entertaining Barabbas. I must now release Barabbas to pass over. It comes at the pass over. To pass from my present state desiring into the state of the desire fulfilled, I must release the state that now binds me. That’s my Barabbas, that’s the thief and the robber that robs me of the man that I could be; for I can be the man that I dare to assume that I am. So if I assume that I am it, and having assumed it, reason now disturbs me and pulls me back into what it dictates, I am keeping company with Barabbas. So the story is, release Barabbas but do not let me go. Now that you have found me, hold onto me, but let all these go. Let Barabbas go.

So everyone here can take this and put it into a practical state tonight. You don’t have to wait till Friday. For every moment in time is this crossway in life. And so tonight you come to a crossway—-you know exactly what you want as against what you have. Release what you have and hold onto what you want to be until it becomes present. It becomes something that is now and something that is here. So we take the dream of the future, and something of a distance, and we bring there here and we bring then now, and hold onto it, and fix ourselves in that state. So that’s on this level.

So he tells us—-and this should comfort everyone in the world who would read it, this is the 4th chapter of the Book of Acts—-“Truly, truly, in this city there were those against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel” (verse 26). Now, he names all, you can’t go beyond it, all Gentiles would be everything outside of the people of Israel. Regardless of race, regardless of nationality, they would be the heathen relative to Israel. Then he includes Israel and all the people of Israel; he includes the leader of the Gentiles, Pontius Pilate; he includes the leader of Israel, Herod, the one who spoke for Israel, having put them all together opposing thy child, thy holy child Jesus, whom thou didst anoint.

But now, what were they gathered to do? “Gathered to do whatever thy hand and thy plan had predestined to take place” (verse 28). How could we take this up this coming Friday and blame anyone in this world when the whole vast world is gathered together to be pitted against this holy child that thou hast anointed? They’re doing it now according to your plan, according to your hand, that you had predestined for it to take place. Can you reach any other conclusion than that something that is taking place in you that no power in the world can stop? If the whole vast world is arrayed against it, they can’t stop it? So you bring the entire world, the Gentile world, the whole world of Israel and their leaders, and pit them against the holy child; and the holy child could not be stopped, he has to be born. But it takes all of this pressure to oppose him to bring him to birth. And these are the marks in the body of Jesus. You will bear them in your body.

Those who are not interested, alright, they aren’t interested, but they will eventually become interested. I take it for granted that you are here because you are interested, and if you have not yet borne one of the marks, you’ll bear all the marks. When they start to appear in your body, they come one after the other, and you can say with him, “Henceforth let no one trouble me; for I bear in my body the marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17). No gaping wounds in my hands, no blood running; the only blood you will ever see will be a glorious blood of refined gold, pure, pure alloy. And there you will see it and as you see it you will know “I am it,” and you fuse with the blood of God. It’s yourself anyway…you are the life of God and the life is in the blood. As you behold it you become one with it, and up you ascend, as told in scripture, “No one ascends into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.” You ascend as the Son of man; therefore, you must have descended.

He has descended. He has descended and now he’s sound asleep in every being in the world, dreaming dreams—-noble dreams sometimes and horrible dreams at other times—because all dreams proceed from God. So whether it be a waking dream, called the day dream, or whether it be the dream of the night, there’s only one origin and that origin is God. God is the dreamer in man, your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s God. He’s dreaming every dream in this world. Most of them are nightmares, horrors, but in the end he will awake. And it will be like a dream in the night, the whole thing vanished from sight as you awake, and you are he.

So here, this wonderful drama hasn’t a thing to do with a special week of the year, it could come any moment in time. You can lead them in procession to the house of God. It could come in the middle of July; it could come in cold December. It need not fall on a Friday at this season of the year. Because the night you’re going to lead them in procession would be the very night you’re going to be crucified. And then you will see what glory it is to be crucified. It’s a joy beyond the wildest dream of man…can’t describe it…it’s sheer, sheer ecstasy that’s what it is. And then you bear all the marks on your ___(??), because you felt it, you experienced it. He’s only talking of what he experienced of the drama of Jesus Christ.

So the drama of Jesus Christ is an acted parable, as he stated it so clearly in his letter to the Galatians. We read it as secular history. It’s not secular history at all. It’s an acted parable that you re-enact supernaturally, just as though you went to the theatre tonight and saw the whole drama unfold before you. Then you don’t understand it. As he said, “You will not understand these now, but you will understand afterwards.” We are called upon—-if sent into this world to do it—-we’re called upon to read from the book, from the law of God, clearly. Read it with understanding and give the sense as you read it so that those who hear with understanding.

And so, how can you read with understanding if you’re not reading from experience or believe the one who has had the experience? If you are going to read it as millions of churches or hundreds of thousands of churches will read it this coming Sunday and tell the story of the resurrection, they haven’t the slightest concept of what it’s all about. The resurrection is not anything that took place in the Near East. No earthly tomb ever held him. The only tomb that ever held him is seated right here and standing here on the platform. These are the tombs that hold him. And in this tomb, while I walk the earth, he rises; not at the end of time but within time, that’s when he rises. He rises within us, one after the other. There’s only one being who rises, only Jesus Christ; but when he rises, you are he. You have no sensation of another. You are alone in that tomb when you awake and there is no other: I am he.

So now he tells the story. “I will tell you this, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe I am he.” When you read these words, you think a man is talking to you or the evangelist is recording a conversation between a man called Jesus and a disciple. That’s not the drama. Listen to it carefully. Now I will tell you…I’m in meditation, I am reading a book; it’s the law of God. I’m trying to read it clearly with understanding so that I will understand what I read. As I read it, it is telling me, in the volume of the book it is all about you (Ps. 40:7). “So now I will tell you, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he” (John 13:19). Well, now he’s going to tell me something that’s going to take place. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14). So that’s what I’ve told you. So something in the depth of my soul is telling me that in the volume of the book it is all about me; and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must I, the Son of man, be lifted up, and when it happens to you you’ll know that I am he. For when it happened to me I did know that I am he. Didn’t happen to another; there was no other. It was all done to me, and so, having been done to me then I am he. So I will tell you, before it takes place, so that when it does take place you will know I am he. There’s only I AM, that’s the name of God. So the whole vast world is looking for him to come, but they’ve forgotten his name. His name is I AM. So when he comes, it happens to him. But it happens to him…but it happened to me. Well, what’s his name? I AM. So you can say as it happens it is happening to me; therefore, it’s happening to God, for that is his name. His name is I AM.

So we take all of these stories and we read them, and as we read them we try to understand them. And then we go back to these words: “You don’t understand it now but you will. But I’ll tell you now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe I am he.” Well, tell me another one. Well, I’ll tell you another one: When you see me—-and you just said I am he—-well, when you see me you see the Father. Well, that’s insane. Alright, wait…I tell you before it takes place…and in a way no one knows, when you see me you see the Father. But I don’t have a child. Alright, you wait. You will see the Father and when you see the Father you’ll know I am he. But how can I see the Father? I stand in his presence and look at him? No. No one will ever know the Father save through his Son. Only the Son knows the Father, and only the Father knows the Son. Therefore, only when the Son reveals the Father, and except that he reveals the Father, the Father remains completely unseen (Mat. 11:27). So I tell you, when you see me you will know the Father.

Wait for him. It will happen one night, it will happen in the way I’ve told you, only through the Son. The Son will come. Out of your own being he will explode, stands before you, and then you know who you are: I am the Father. Because, here is my Son and he’s God’s Son, God’s only begotten Son (Ps. 2:7). So he looks into your face and he calls you “Lord, Adonay”, calls you “my Father, the Rock of my salvation” (Ps. 89:26). And you know it beyond all doubt. So there is another sign you bear on your body, the sign of the fatherhood of God. It happened to you, therefore you know who you are.

You could go, “Ask me another or tell me of the others I must bear on my body.” Well, you told me I would bear in my body the death of Jesus. You’ll tell me that? “I bear in my body the death of Jesus that I may experience the life of Jesus in my body” (2 Cor. 4:10). So I carry his death: he’s so sound asleep in me that he appears to be dead. So I carry within me that I may have his life within me, and life is when these scars, these marks, begin to appear within me.

So now he tells me another one, when he seals you with his approval, seals you with the Holy Spirit. Does that happen too? Yes. I tell you, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. It’s not going to happen to another. When it [dove] comes down, it’s going to light upon you and you will ___(??) this being. He comes down on you and smothers you with affection, smothers you with kisses. Who is he smothering? He’s smothering me, so I am he. For if he descended only on this being, and descends on me and smothers me with kisses then I know I am he. So all of these are the marks of which Paul spoke. Let no one trouble me and argue about this point and that point. Don’t trouble me, said he, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

If you must keep alive these little icons for days now and weeks and months and seasons and years, do it. For after 2,000 years we still keep them alive and still add to them. Here, a few years ago in Montreal, which is almost a hundred percent Catholic, the Catholic Church brought action against the biggest department store in Montreal to force that store to close their doors on every Catholic holy day. Well, if you did it, the year isn’t long enough, because every day is the birthday of a saint or the birthday of someone else. So they fought it in court and for business reasons the judge brought in a verdict in favor of the department store, their biggest department store. Well, if they’re closed for every church holiday, based upon their so-called creed, we would have no business at all. Luckily, the judge was a very honest man and a man not carried away by the arguments of the church. Well, this happened only a few years ago. So you start one day, and you get another day, you get a week, month, year, and so on.

So there aren’t any holy days. No, he said that Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. A few years ago you could do nothing on the Sabbath. Now today, they almost all of us say we can do almost everything on the Sabbath. The blue laws are being ignored or taken from the books. Well, if they’re not right today they were never right, save in the warped minds of those who wrote them. In ___(??) New York City a holiday can’t start on Sundays until two, and no bar can be open until one. Why?—because people wouldn’t go to church. If a holiday could start at a reasonable, say, eleven o’clock in the morning, you wouldn’t get anyone in church. They’d be up in the ballpark, 65-70,000 of them, watching a good game. But to assure some attendance in church they have a law and say you can’t start the game until five minutes after two in New York City on Sunday, and no bar can be opened until one. Well, that may be a good thing in a certain way, but not everyone thinks so. But here is this holy day, holy week that they are now about to celebrate and to keep alive.

Paul, the greatest apostle of them all…and I am convinced that the story of Paul, from my own experience, must be the story of every man and woman in this world. For when I was taken into the presence of the risen Christ, he asked a question that prompted the answer in the words of Paul. And a friend of mine who is now back East, a young chap, used to come here all the time, he’s now back in New York, and when he had this mystical experience it was in the words of Paul that he answered. He quoted the 20th verse of the 2nd chapter of Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” So it was in a classroom, in a mystical sense, where he saw this board with a series of questions on one and a series of questions on the other. He had to answer a few based upon that to the right hand. His answer was, as he wrote it out, it was based on the words of Paul.

In my own experience it was the word of Paul that I answered when the risen Christ asked me to name the greatest thing in the world. From Corinthians, the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, I answered, “Faith, hope and love, these three abide; but the greatest of these is love.” And with that answer the risen Christ embraced me, infinite love, and as he embraced me we fused and became one. So I could state that I mean it from experience. Everyone will awake and everyone will be incorporated into the body of Christ. So, in the end, there is only Jesus Christ—-one being containing all, without loss of identity. No loss of identity and still only one being, Jesus Christ. This fragmented God ___(??) of Jesus Christ and his doctrine: And when I be lifted up, you will know who I am, I am he. So when you are lifted up, you know I’m the one being lifted up, I am he. So everything said of him man is going to experience, but everything. And then, in the end, you leave this age.

I was reading about John today and in one passage by the exegesis it made the statement: Of course, we know that the word Messiah, when you use the word Christ, mean the same thing. And then we use the word devil instead of the Hebrew word Satan…as we use the word Christ, which is the Greek for Messiah, which is Hebrew. But a word which we use, the ___(??), meaning the age, an infinite measure of time, called “that” age as against “this” age, and it’s the Greek ___(??). But it’s used in place of the Hebrew Olam and Olam means eternity; Olam is called “the world.”

“And God put Olam—-you can call it “that age” if you want, call it “eternity”—-but “he put Olam into the mind of man, yet so that man cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Eccles. 3:11).

So, only the end, only eschatology brings it to the surface. When it comes to the end, the doctrine of the end, the marks begin to appear. And only then do you know what God put into the mind of man, put that new age into the mind of man; that when he’s ripened after all the horrors of this dream, then he breaks the shell and then all these marks begin to appear within him. The birth, the resurrection, the discovery of the fatherhood, the ascent of the Son of man, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, all these begin to appear within him. They come only at the end. He speculated, he tried to find out through reason, and not a thing happened…only when it came to the very end. And then he broke it. It wasn’t what the world was looking for; that’s not the king that they sought. I wanted some mighty being to come charging through and slaughter my enemies, and lift me up on high. It doesn’t come that way. His kingdom is not of this world.

So the most perfect man born and raised on earth, he said, is not equal to the least in the kingdom of God. He said, “Among those born of women none is greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Mat. 11:11). Here is John trying to acquire merit by doing violence to his appetites, say, neither eating nor drinking and living the life of a hermit; simply suppressing every normal, natural inclination that is of normal man, trying to be a holy man through such violence to his appetites. And he said, The least in the kingdom is greater than he. Well, John is not in the kingdom. Who is John, another man? No, this is John, this outward being that is here now. He wore a camel’s hair, covered with hair all over, and a leather girdle. Well, I have my outer skin and the hair all over. That is John the Baptist. And you pass through that state prior to the awakening of Christ within you. That state is one of self-denial. You give up this, you give up that, you give up the other, all in the hope of acquiring merit, hoping in some strange way you’ll be seen as one who has made the effort. And so, this is the outer man that cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. Flesh and blood cannot enter heaven. Only Spirit can enter heaven and Spirit is that which sleeps within you…that is this wonderful King of kings that is Jesus Christ. So when be awakes he’s the king of heaven, and this one you shed at the very last and take it off because it cannot enter that state.

So here, this week if you still want to go to church on Sunday, go. Do what you want to do…you’ll do it anyway. But I do know that is not what Paul teaches. I know it’s not the story of Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ walks with you and your every act is but the result of his dream. Finally, he stirs from the dream, and stirring, he awakes and you are he. Then all you have to do is just wait for the little marks. And the final mark, as I see it, is to be sealed by the Holy Spirit…that’s the descent of the dove. That’s the final one that you bear on your body and in your body. All the others come over the years and the last four great and mighty ones come within a period of three and a half years. Then you wait until that moment in time that it pleases God to take off John the Baptist’s head; so the head comes off, the body is gone, and then Christ will rise into his kingdom. But he’s already in there but cannot fully enter and claim his inheritance so long as he’s still in a body of flesh and blood.

Now let us go into the Silence.

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Q: (inaudible)A: ___(??) like Isaac and the Christ child? Isaac is the promised child. So we pass through the Esau stage. It’s the earliest stage of the promise, but it cannot inherit what Jacob can. So we find in Jacob the father of the twelve tribes, the great prototype, as we find it in Joseph. These are the ones that lead up towards the fulfillment in Jesus Christ. For it takes, as we’re told, if I read the scripture correctly, 6,000 years for this promise to be completed.

Q: ___(??) in the Bible they mention holy days.A: Yes they did. But when man begins to awake he discovers that holy days are extraneous. He said that the Sabbath was not made that man should be enslaved by it; that man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man. So he broke bread on the Sabbath, he healed on the Sabbath. Well, to this day, 1965, I know this from experience in New York City in a strictly orthodox community, Jewish community, that you did not carry—-if you had the worst cold in the world, you wouldn’t put a handkerchief, as I have it here, in your pocket, you would tie it on your hand, then you are not carrying something. You would walk ten miles to your destination, rather than put a nickel—-today it’s now fifteen cents, but it used to be when I was there a nickel—-in the subway. You could go ten miles in no time flat for a nickel, but you couldn’t carry a nickel because that would be laboring on the Sabbath. And this is the 20th Century. That is still kept alive today, that you can’t carry anything on you because that is work.

Q: Do the holy days have significance?A: It’s simply a discipline of the mind. There are really seven Sabbaths today, because the Chinese also take one day off and they have a different day. It’s simply a day of rest…“And God rested.” After laboring for six, he rested. So man shouldn’t labor seven days, though there are many employees that would like to ___(??), and I mean employers who would like to have employees labor seven days. But, fortunately, it’s cutting it down more and more; now it’s down to five. I’m all for it. And so, the Sabbath and the sacrifices, like the slaughter of bulls, the slaughter of a little pair of doves, and so on, that is something that he rubs out when he awoke within man.They were to hold the line in check as you would a wild animal. And you don’t have to beat the animal after the animal becomes tame. For when you take a dog and you train the dog to heel and to obey, after he has been trained—it’s a difficult time until he’s trained—then he’s trained. Now he has freedom following his being trained.

And so, you take the horse and the horse is trained. But it takes quite a while to break the wild ass in. And after he’s broken in, well, then he has freedom because he’s been trained. He said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Well, the word “meek” is the same word “tamed,” as you would tame a wild animal. So these are the animals spoken of in Daniel, and we put on these garments of the animal, and then they must be trained. So this discipline of the mind, like keeping the Sabbath, keeping this, keeping the other, after it is trained one day is as holy as the other. And you live the sort of a life, a life of freedom, not enslaved by these things that were placed upon the mind of man for this reaction.

Q: (inaudible)A: Every dream is from God. What does it mean if you should dream of a crucifix? Well, the crucifix to me is one of the most glorious symbols in the world. Not a symbol of pain, as interpreted by man, it is the most glorious gift in the world because God became man. This [body] is the crucifix. What a merciful act! He became man to awake in man, and waking in man the man rises with him. Until that moment in time they would not believe what he told them, any more than today they would believe if I told them. If I said to the whole vast world—-I would now exempt everyone here—-but if I said to the world, as he said in the Book of John, when he refused to answer, he said, “You will not talk to me?” Said Pilate, “Do you not know that I have the power to release you, and the power to crucify you?” He answered, “You have no power over me were it not given to you from above; therefore he who delivered me into your hand has the greater sin” (John 19:10).He saw this world as everyone who begins to awake sees it. And they arrest an activity in them and the world freezes. They release that activity and it moves on to complete its purpose. They can stop it again. They could change the motive of the individual who arrested…(tape runs out).