The Rock and the Highway

(__??) very, very practical and very spiritual. Were you and I to own the earth and that ended it all, what would it matter? Just what would it matter what we really created in the world?

So, if you are with us for the first time, we claim here that Imagination is the great fundamental reality of the world and of all life. There is no other foundation. All things came forth from divine imagining and are sustained by divine imagining. Therefore, all things conspire to aid the harvesting of our imaginal acts, all things, as we’ll show you tonight, good, bad and indifferent. Therefore, all things work for good. The most horrible thing in the world works for good…it will be aiding you in the birth of your imaginal activities. Not every one, but you’ll find that many of them will.

So here tonight, in the midst of bringing things into our world that you and I desire, there is a plan. It’s stated quite clearly in Peter’s first letter, “Place your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1Pet. 1:13). Grace is God’s gift of himself to man. That is grace in scripture. It is coming to man, so place your hope fully upon that grace, that gift. That you have other hopes, certainly. I hope to be successful. I hope to be this, I hope to be the other, I hope for my friends. These are minor hopes, but the great hope is that the grace will come to me. That is the hope. And this is this great and one hope spoken of by Paul, when he speaks of one hope. He said, “There’s only one Spirit, one body, one hope” (Eph.4:4). It is this one great hope that makes it wisdom to accept the burdens of this long dark night of life…for it is a long night and a burdensome journey. The end is worth every problem man will encounter; for the end is to awaken as God, the divine Creator, the divine Imaginer. So it’s worth everything…that’s our great hope.

So tonight, let us start with this perfectly wonderful experience of a very dear friend of mine. One who has been raised from the grave, one who has experienced the birth, the fatherhood, and the ascent. He said, “I found myself deep in the earth in an enormous cavern. Along the center of the cavern ran this highway, straight through the cavern, the highway. It was very smooth. I stood on the side and where I stood they had excavated to the depth of forty feet. Outside of myself there was but one man. He was extremely beautiful, this man of great intensity”—but he stresses the beauty of the man—“and coming towards me where this excavation was was a machine, and he seemed to be the sole operator. Not on the machine, but he seemed to be in control of what the machine was doing. It was filling this excavation with rock and cement.

“I held in my hand a few old, dried pieces of cement, mortar. Because the thing was coming towards me, I thought I would help it along, so I threw it into the hole. He turned, spoke to me and told me to remove what I had thrown in. Then he said to me, ‘You cannot add to the foundation.’ So I removed what I had thrown in. Evidently that was not enough, I had to sign or write out an affidavit. The paper on which I wrote it was soft, like a blotter. So when I got through writing out the affidavit, it had so smudged the whole thing was nothing but ink. I said to him, ‘I’ll have to write it all over again, because you can’t read it.’ He took it from me, smiled, and put it in his pocket. Then he said to me, ‘It is okay. You can’t read it but I can.’ And that was it.”

He was the master builder as told in the scripture, the third chapter of 1st Corinthians: “According to the commission of God to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid the foundation, others build upon it. But other foundations no one can lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1Cor.310). There is no other foundation. You either accept it or then you go astray. This foundation is your own wonderful human Imagination, personified in scripture as Jesus Christ, defined in scripture as the creative power and wisdom of God (1Cor.1:24). There is no other foundation. Now on it you may build with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, stubble or hay. Every man’s work will be made manifest for the day will reveal it. If your work survives, you will receive a reward. If your work is consumed by fire, you will suffer loss, although you yourself will be saved, but only as through fire (1Cor.3:12). “Do you not know you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” This you will read in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, the 3rd chapter (verse 16).

No other foundation. Here he held in his hand something of the past, well, that won’t help it. You can’t help it, there is no other. You can’t justify any other causation. You can say, well, my mother did so and so and see she died of cancer; therefore, it’s in the family line. And you can say, well, she died of leprosy; that’s in the family line. And the wise men in the world will go along with you and say that’s part of the family tree. And they get away from the one foundation. Our bodies are emotional filters and bear the marks of our prevalent emotions. There’s no need for me to carry through my life the same kind of emotion, the same kind of reactions, that my mother did, my father did, my brothers did, or anyone else in the world. I am unique; I am not a duplicate of anyone in the world. The being that I am…I have a garment, it resembles my earthly parents yes, but there’s no reason for me to wear it as they wore theirs, and suffer the same reactions and the same emotional disturbances and produce similar things in my world.

So he held in his hand something of the past. Maybe my success is due to the people that I know. My father once told me, my mother once told me, my brother once told me that “it’s who you know.” So that’s lodged in the mind and that’s part of the little cement of the past. It’s dried and something once used, for there it was, it was used. But now I’ll throw it in. No, take it out, remove it. Well, who is this one, this extremely beautiful one who spoke to him, that he had given in the very end? “You cannot see it, but I can.” The words belong to God, as you read it in the 16 chapter of 1st Samuel. When the prophet saw this majestic creature, “Surely he is the Lord’s anointed!” and the voice said, “I have rejected him; for the Lord sees not as man sees; man sees the outward appearance, and the Lord sees only the heart” (1Sam.16:7). So all this that you see in the outward appearance, what this one said, that one said, the wise people said today, what you read in books—reject him—I see the heart. He saw what mortal eye cannot see, it’s the Lord ___(??). The Lord’s messenger is the Lord himself. He takes any garment. So when you saw him in the form of that man, when I meet him as the messenger that he sends to me, it may be a different man, as beautiful, as striking, but not the absolutely identical person. The Lord always comes in the form of his messenger.

Now, here he comes in the form of his messenger. He’s in communion with one who sees what mortal eye cannot see, and tells him to remove any attempt to add to that foundation. Now he finds…where is the highway? The 35th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, “And there shall be a highway there.” For what purpose? “The redeemed shall walk there and come to Zion with singing and with everlasting joy upon their heads” (Is.35:8). No one who has been born from above is less than the redeemed. He is the redeemed. He was awakened from this dream of life. He beheld God’s only begotten Son who called him, Father.

So here, he’s the redeemed. He sees the highway. It’s a smooth highway—all the rough parts have been smoothed out. And he sees it being filled in now, what, forty feet. Well, forty doesn’t mean that it’s feet or years or months or days, it’s simply a symbol of creativity. Forty if the numerical value of the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Mem, which means a womb. Here is creation now. It’s all being filled in to show exactly how things are created. Not forty feet. I’ll fill it in with what?—a rock. He’s putting in rocks into that machine. Now what is the rock? The Sermon on the Mount ends on this note, “He who hears my words and does them I liken him unto a wise man who builds his house upon the rock”—it’s definitive, it’s not a rock—“who builds his house upon the rock; and the winds came, the rain came, the floods came, it mentions all kinds of others, but it didn’t fall, for he had built it and founded it upon the rock” (Mat.7:24). Now he shows you the man who was not the wise man, who builds his home on the sand, and when these others begin to become aroused, great was the fall of it.

Here is the rock. Now, what rock is spoken of in scripture? We find it in the 32nd of Deuteronomy, “Of the Rock that begot you you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who gave you birth” (Deut.32:18). So here we find the word God and the word Rock equated, “Of the Rock that begot you you are unmindful, and forgot the God who gave you birth.” And Christ is called the Rock. So we build upon this one foundation, called Jesus Christ. He is the rock. Well, that Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human Imagination. That’s Jesus Christ and all things are possible to him, but all things.

Now what must I do as I walk this road? I’ve accepted that now. I have taken back the things I’ve played with, and no longer will I have a second God, only one God. Can’t have two Gods, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” not two. So I will not have two anymore, just the one God, my own wonderful human Imagination. What am I called upon to do? Let me tell you and share with you an experience of a very dear friend, who is here tonight. Her daughter was desperately ill. The wise men at U.C.L.A said to her, the mother, unless we can get that kidney functioning she will die in three weeks. The best thing really would be a transplant, but we do not have kidney banks. We have eye banks and blood banks, but we don’t have kidney banks. It has to be a transplant just from the live one to the live one, and so the donor and the receiver must be present to receive. She volunteered instantly, “Well, take my kidney.” He said, “Alright, come into the hospital prepared to spend three days to make the tests.”

And so, quickly she goes into the hospital, and they made the tests, and said to her, “We cannot use your kidney.” It functioned all right for her, but it could not be transplanted. It’s not the perfect kidney. It would not be helpful to this daughter of hers. The daughter, by the way, is a mother; she has children. So the mother in calling me up, I said, “Well, the only thing that I know of is turn to the only source. You went to…as you should, as your daughter should…but I turn to the only source, that is, to my own wonderful human Imagination. I will hear you tell me what as one who loves this girl would like to tell the world. That’s all that I will do.”

Well, naturally she was in tears, crying, which is the normal, natural reaction when you love someone and wise men tell you three weeks and she’s gone from this world. You can’t ___(??) her until you, too, depart, and you live then in a kind of hope that maybe there is survival. But here was not something that she sold the daughter, here was the gift of God, without price, without money. Wasn’t selling the kidney…“Take it.” No assurance that it would be a successful operation and no assurance that she, the giver, would survive. It’s a serious operation, it’s not a light one, and there was no assurance by anyone that this mother or the daughter would survive the operation. But she willingly gave it without price, without money. No mortal eye saw what she was wearing at the time, but she was wearing when she offered it, she was wearing the garment they called the scarlet garment in scripture, the garment of love. The garment…in Matthew is the place to find it.

But, more than that, when she went to the hospital and they made the tests, they proved her sincerity. She wasn’t fooling. When she said, “Take mine,” she was wearing then the blue garment of truth. And the scarlet plus the blue produces the purple robe that they placed upon him. We must weave the garment…everyone must. So here is one’s misfortune her opportunity to wear and weave the garment that the Christ wears. Here we are told that they placed upon him the crown of thorns. She wore them: she was anxious, she was concerned and she wept. These are the anxieties that come with motherhood. And she willingly gave if they would take it. And she was telling the truth, for they tested her, and she was quite willing to go right then into the operation, to have it removed and transplanted into her daughter. So she wore both the scarlet and the blue and together they formed the purple. And so, they placed upon him the purple robe when they brought him to the climax of the drama. No mortal eye could see her in it. Here, she is completely unknown in this world. A great actress could take that theme and so dramatize it she could get an Oscar for it. She has already been repaid with her Oscar, because she only pretended, she didn’t really give it. Had she given it, then she would have been weaving the garment.

Now, this is in scripture, in the 22nd of Genesis. Here we find the lad, the promised lad, Isaac, and he turns to his father Abraham, he said, “My father, I see the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” The father said to him, “God himself will be the offering.” Read it carefully. God himself…___(??), God himself is the offering, the burnt offering, my son. When the voice heard this, the willingness was enough. He didn’t burn…just the willingness was enough. And the voice said to him, “Because you did not withhold your only son…” It wasn’t his only son if you read scripture correctly—but this really is one’s only son—and when Abraham awoke he named it. It’s called in scripture “The place that God provided.” It isn’t so at all. The word provided is not accurately translated. It’s “the place that God saw”; it’s “to see.” And to this day that place is seen by God. We’re told in that chapter, only God can see it.

To come back to my friend now with the blotter…only God sees it, he sees the heart. He saw the intention and it wasn’t pretended. She wasn’t trying to play in the eyes of the doctors, like some great mother who was going to sacrifice herself. She meant it, to the point of the tears coming. So I can say to her tonight, you have started in fact not started you are a long way in weaving that wedding garment. For when the feast is held, those who are not properly clothed cannot enter. They can’t function. Anyone who shouldn’t attend will be out. Everyone must weave it, and so one’s distress was her opportunity to actually live by this principle and live by love. As I’ve said night after night, every time that you exercise your Imagination lovingly on behalf of another, you’re actually mediating God to that other. But aside from that, you are weaving the garment that no mortal eye sees. And the mind must have this garment to function. For when the garment is formed in man, when you awaken, you must be properly clothed, and you’re clothed in these wonderful garments.

Luke describes it, “And the glorious body of God” (Phil. 3:21). The word translated glorious, which is our lamb, the little lamb, is defined as “radiant light.” You can put any color you want on it…it’s radiant light…it radiates, the body of glory. But John translates it as purple, and purple is the one that covered that which Solomon made himself. Solomon made himself a chariot—that is the mind. The chariot is the chariot of the mind. He made himself a chariot of the wood of the cedars of Lebanon that is incorruptible; worms will not attack it. I know, as a boy, we had our cedar chests. Mother would always tell us, “Because no bug will attack it.” You can have mahogany, it’s a hard wood, a lovely wood, but they’ll get into that eventually. But cedar…she always believed it. Why, I don’t know. But she always said, cedar, the moths will not. So we kept our clothes in cedar chests. Instead of using mothballs and things of that sort, the cedar wood, fragrant wood…and yet mother believed you didn’t need anything outside of cedar to keep the moths out. So our chests were all cedar chests, or the drawers made, the interior of cedar wood. So he made it of the cedar of Lebanon…then he took the entire chariot and covered it with purple.

So here, one has to cover the mind and you cover it with the robe that Christ wears, because you are destined to awaken as Christ…everyone in the world. Christ is image of God, and Christ is God. It is God in man that is awakening. When he awakens he has to be properly clothed, and he’s clothed in the purple robes. Call it purple…it’s simply love and truth. For he said, “I am the truth,” and God is defined as love. His name is I AM, so he’s saying, “I am love.” And then I do know from my own personal experience, standing in the presence of infinite love, that it is man, and it is God. So God is love, he’s also life.

So here, God is red…and what greater love than to offer one’s life for one that you love. No greater love has man than this that he lays down himself his life for one he loves, for his friend. So you don’t pretend you’re going to lay it down, your willingness is seen by God. And so, men make the test. But long before the test was made, God saw the willingness, and didn’t take her daughter. So she tells me tonight that the daughter has recovered. Yes, they did all they could…and they did a marvelous job. They gave their chemicals and flushed it out and washed out all the poison, and kept on doing it. But behind their chemicals was an imaginal act that supported it.

Just to imagine the state…a probability? No. Probability is reason’s miserly gift. If you take it and accept it, then you give no heed to faith, and without faith it is impossible to please him. I must have faith in my imaginal act. If I say, “Well, there is a chance, there’s a probability,” what a niggardly ___(??) that is. So the minute you accept it then you are robbing yourself of the one thing God demands of man, which is called faith. He said, “Without faith it is impossible to please him” (Heb.11:06). We only have two things in scripture that displease God. One is the absence of faith in I AM he, and the second is eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Judging this one, judging that one, and just passing judgment on all—that’s good and that’s no good. The security of my own standards, using myself as the criterion of what is right and what is wrong. And so, these two things you are told in scripture displease God. And so, the minute you accept the problem, you are simply about to displease him because you aren’t going to have faith and you will listen to the wise men of the world. Precede their wisdom with the imaginal act in absolute faith.

So when she called me in the interval, she said, “Do you mind if I cry?” I said, “No, I don’t care if you cry. The shortest verse in scripture, ‘Jesus wept.’” When?—at the tomb of one that he loved dearly. And so she could not fail to see the possibility of a tomb…but no, let her cry. And every time we talked, she came back to the imaginal act. How long, my Lord, how often? Oh, doesn’t really matter. Seventy times seven: as often as it takes to come back to that initial vision that she is now once more doing the job that she should do as a young mother. She has a child. The child needs her attention, needs her care, and needs a mother. So we remain faithful to that vision, no matter what appears on the horizon.

So here, my friend with this wonderful experience…and he has to ___(??) from now on. It has happened to him, and nothing but scripture can unfold within him. So night after night, he will have these. He cannot bring back every one. You don’t bring them back all the time. This mortal brain that must make its exit sometime sometimes is incapable of receiving the great imprint as we’re moving back to once more clothe ourselves in these very limited garments, for they’re all limited. And you may find yourself, as a friend of mine tonight told me, she found herself last night struggling and struggling. She found herself so bound. She interpreted in her dream to be clothed by ___(??). It wasn’t that; it’s this. For when you’re free of it, you wonder “Why must I put it on again?” And yet it’s essential to the work that is being done in us; for he started a work in us to awaken us as himself. God became man that man may become God. He’s not pretending that he’s you, he became you. And in you, he is your own wonderful human Imagination, that’s God…the only God. The only foundation…and “no other foundation can man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1Cor. 3:11)…the image of the invisible God.

So that being? Yes. How could my Imagination have performed? But I am all Imagination; I have performed. “Man is all Imagination and God is man, and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the Imagination…and that is God himself” (Blake, Annt. to Berk.; Laocoon). So I am a person. When I meet God…he became me…must I not meet a person? I tell you I know the truth of that statement: one body. And it is a human body. It’s infinite love. Therefore, there is only one Spirit, one body, one hope, one God, one faith, only one.

So let this one hope tonight be so permeating you that you are willing to accept the burdens that must come when you enter this journey. The goal is worth everything that you go through. As Paul said, “I consider that the struggles, tribulations, the horrors of the present time, aren’t worth considering; you can’t compare it to the glory that is to be revealed in us” (Rom.8:18). It seems such a horrible thing when you see death all around you, and the maimed, and the hurt, the lame, yet they all can contribute. And they do, they offer an opportunity for you to weave the garment…and the garment, you must weave it…for you can’t be born until the garment is ready to clothe it. And so, you can’t be awakened until that garment is ready to clothe the one awake, for he is Spirit. How will he be seen save seen as the radiant garment?

And so, she started…not started, she’s a way along weaving this garment of love. I tell you, God is all love. Not one emotion permeates you or touches you when you stand in the presence of the risen Christ but love, infinite love. He embraces you, you fuse, you become one, and from then on you aren’t two—one Spirit and one body. Though individualized, and forever and forever still remain individualized, yet one. It’s quite a mystery. There’s only one God in spite of the unnumbered who one day will be incorporated into the one God, the one body, the one Spirit. And not any loss of identity…I will know you in eternity, know you more intimately than I know you now, for I know you through the mask that you are wearing. But there was a time when you and I knew each other intimately, before we started the journey. You’ll return to that enhanced by reason of the journey. For there’s only God; it is God who did it in the beginning and God who is awakening in the end. So he increases his creativity by the journey that we are taking. So whatever ___(??) as to power, as to wisdom, as to creativity will be enlarged by reason of the journey that we’re on now.

Let me go back and tell you there is no other foundation, and that foundation is your own wonderful human Imagination. Don’t turn to any other cause; there is no other cause. Things happening in our world, they’re only the past appearing. You and I have forgotten them and we do not recognize our own harvest. We set things in motion now and we go about our business and suddenly it appears in the form of a ripe field for harvest, but we don’t recognize it. We do not relate it to anything that we have ever done. We can’t quite relate the thing that comes into our world to anything we might have done, yet the past is ever appearing in the present, the whole vast past. And so, live nobly, because you’re told in this story that we quoted tonight, and Paul said, build upon it gold if you will, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or stubble. It’s going to be revealed, the day will reveal it, and all will be manifested. The one whose work survives, he receives a reward; and the one whose work is consumed by fire he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved though as by fire. For all the things you create in horror, in the unlovely manner, they cannot survive. But it’s painful letting them go and they all go. Every one must disappear because they can’t be fitted into the beauty and the harmony that is coming. But those who build the noble things—like this mother for the daughter—that is eternal, that was done in love. That was done in a sacrificial love and that is a gift forever. That evidence is forever, you’ll never rub it out. That was not a ___(??) that she took and then she applied it, and built upon that one foundation this beautiful structure.

So I would say, live nobly that your mind can store a past worthy of recall, because the mind whose contents vanish suffers loss. Though the mind cannot vanish, but it suffers loss. So live nobly and imagine the best for yourself and for others. Because it’s not an idle imaginal act, it’s going to confront you. The present is not receding into the past, it’s advancing into the future to confront us. Suddenly it appears and we wonder, “Where did it come from?” It came because we set it in motion. Everyone in the world is aiding the manifestation of that state, aiding its birth. You look around and you wonder “Well, how could it happen?” If we could only take all of the little details, you will see that that one helped, that one helped, total strangers helped. But they really aren’t strangers in the depth of your soul. If they can be used they’ll be used, without their consent, without their knowledge. So you don’t have to ask how it’s going to work, just go to the end and imagine the end as though it were true. Remain faithful to the end and let it alone. You’ll see how this thing comes into your world, one after the other.

So don’t deny that these things that happened that are unlovely that you did them. They couldn’t happen otherwise. They couldn’t come into your world were they not caused, and you were the cause. You’re the perceiver, you’re the cause. Don’t regret it. Admit that at one moment in your life you didn’t know the right foundation and you tried to put something else into it and you used a spurious causation…and it came into your world, these unlovely things. Now that you know the truth, do not go back to a false God. There is no other God.

So imagining is the great secret for all of us in this room. Yes, unnumbered millions tonight, they do not know it. Leave them alone…they will come to it.You take our great leaders in the business world and the world of royalty they have their coats made of purple. You can’t make this coat with human hands. I have seen them dressed up in their purples and their scarlet robes, but they have seams in them. This robe of which I speak is seamless; no human hand could make it; only the heart of man can make it. And so it has to be the pure heart. You can’t fool it. You can’t pretend that you love this one to the point of self-sacrifice, you must mean it. When you mean it, then you weave it, without seam. So these lovely robes that they all put on themselves and claim that they now fill a certain station in life, based upon their robes, and they were made by man and moth corrupts them…the moth can get them. But no moth can tackle that which this lady has woven through her sacrificial love. So the outward appearance means nothing. You can’t put it on. These robes are seen not by the mortal eye, they are seen only by the eye of the Spirit.

So I could tell you unnumbered things that I have experienced in these other worlds. Speak of glory…speak of being gloriously attired when you enter this assemblage of the gods! And they’re all dressed but dressed not as you’re dressed, as I’m dressed, dressed by clothing themselves not by taking cloth, they come clothed in this manner. You know them. They seem so intimate. You meet people that you know that you do not know them here at all and they are intimates of the Spirit, so intimate. The most intimate relationship on earth is nothing compared to this intimacy. You know them, know them so well, and you know them in eternity. You come clothed yourself, because you’re clothed now. But you’re not looking at yourself. They see you, you see them. For you have no desire to look and observe the garment that you wear. But you’re wearing the same kind of garment that they wear, clothed as they are, because you, too, along the journey had these opportunities and you took it and willingly gave your life for one that you loved. And so, he laid it down. Not because it was taken from him, he laid it down voluntarily for one that he loved.

So tonight, take it in the practical side. The other is more practical, the loving side. But in the world of Caesar, if you want a better job, want more money it’s yours for the taking, yours for the appropriating, so you appropriate it. As you’re told in the 50th Psalm: “If I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you; for the world is mine and all within it. The cattle on a thousand hills are mine” (verses 10, 12). So were I hungry, I would slay and eat. Why would I ask permission of another to take my own? And so, the whole is yours, for he became you. So appropriate…appropriate the security that you want in this world and feel that you are secure. Appropriate anything in this world just as though it were true and walk as though it is true. In a way that you do not know it will suddenly appear in your world. That suddenness had its beginning that maybe you will forget. But do it now, assume it’s coming in the immediate future, that it is here. And see if you cannot relate it to that night that you really imagined. When these lovely things begin to happen in your world, you will find that memory will return and you will know the time that you did imagine it. If man could only go back in memory, there isn’t one thing in his world that could surprise him, because he would know he imagined. You read the morning paper, you don’t know the people, and you react violently because you read of some horrible thing that happened, and you pass judgment on the one you do not know. Whether he did it or not, he’s accused because you reacted, accused in you. That’s how all these things happen in the world. We perpetuate them morning, noon and night.

So believe me when I tell you that the God that you worship, the God that all the people of the religious worlds worship, is this wonderful God in you. There is no other God. It seems such a crazy claim to make…that you, mortal you seated here, that that wonderful Imagination of yours is one with Divine Imagination, not two. God is one, and so in becoming you he may seem to be less than his absolute state, but really not, because he can’t be divided. That same power in you is the power that sustains the universe. The same power in you that can create a loving teacher for you is that power that created the universe. And may I tell you, it is all love. Believe it or not it is all love…in spite of the horrors of the world.

So you dwell upon the story of my friend and the story of my other friend that I happen to know the story intimately because it was almost a daily call, and sometimes two and three calls a day, since I returned from San Francisco. So it has been a very close, intimate relationship. And tonight, to hear confirmation that the doctors said that she has recovered! I must say she’s not running races now and doing things of that nature, but she has recovered. And so, the great story in that story is what happened to the mother not the daughter. That she recovered I am very grateful, and the mother is grateful, that’s what she wanted; but to me, the teacher, the story of value there is what happened to the mother…her willingness to die for the child…and she didn’t have to die. Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice what he loved most.

What is the most precious thing in this world to you? Is it not self? Have you anything to give if you didn’t have a self to give it? What is more precious than the self? And she was willing to give it. Yes, if I had a billion dollars I could possibly persuade someone in a jail, who is sentenced to life, to give his kidney for a million that I may save my daughter. He knows he can’t get out and feeling that he has, not betrayed, but injured his family would like to in some way do something good about it. And so, he could only give a kidney…and give him a million. Well, he can’t use the million in jail and he might have left a family distressed because of his confinement. And so, if I had the million, maybe I could persuade some lifer to sell me a kidney. But I haven’t woven anything for myself. And he would be something if he accepted money thinking, though he’s confined, he by his goodness would die or give up something that is vital to him that his family may have an easier life. That weaves his garment. The one you could find for a million hasn’t added one thread to it.

Undoubtedly, there are moments in this world where tyrants could without the consent of the slave take the kidney, if they had surgeons equal to the task of transplanting it. So there are numberless ways you can see how this thing could be worked out. But in this, it was simply not anyone who struck her over the head. Doctor made his decision: she can’t live unless this kidney begins to function, and the only thing is a transplant. “Take my kidney”—no hesitation whatsoever—“Take it.” “Well, come in, we’ll make the tests. Come prepared to spend three days.” And so she goes to hear the verdict, can’t use your kidney. But the willingness was enough…she gave it.

So tonight I ask everyone just to dwell upon it. Don’t go looking for the opportunity, it will come out of nowhere. When you least expect it, something of that nature, something just as major in your life will present itself. And then, are you willing?When someone is distressed, like the thing we told you last meeting night, which was told me by a very dear friend of mine. If you had but a dollar and it was necessary to spend it, do it as though it were a dried leaf and you the owner of unbounded forests, if it were necessary to spend it. But, are you going to cut it and say, No, because I may have need of some of it tomorrow? Well then, the garment, you have a broken thread…and this had no seam in it. But the way is to come though you do not know where to turn.

You’ll find all these challenges and, therefore, you’re told in scripture all things work for good…that “You meant it for evil; but God meant it for good.” They sold him into slavery, Joseph, and he said to his brothers, “You meant it for evil against me; but God meant it for good” (Gen.50:20). Therefore, you did not sell me into slavery. He used you because you could be used. Your envy, your jealousy, made you perfect instruments to be used in what you did. Were you not jealous and envious of me you could not be used, so you could be used. The opportunity presented itself to dispose of me, and you were the ones chosen. Others were not on the list but you. And they dipped his robes in blood and sent it back to his father Jacob and said he was destroyed, because see this coat and the blood is on it.

Then they thought he would never return from the slavery of Egypt. It was he who saved the world by rightly interpreting the dreams of pharaoh: Seven years of plenty, the seven years of famine. He interpreted the dream and he took a percentage of all the products of Egypt and saved it and did bonds for it. So at the end of seven years when the famine came, no one remembered when they ever had enough to eat, and only Egypt had it. And they came from all over the civilized world to get it. It was he who saved civilization by rightly interpreting the dreams of pharaoh. So they called him, the Dreamer. Yes, he is the Dreamer, for he found God in himself; and God in you is the Dreamer. But I can only tell you one source of dream: All dreams proceed from God. Well, I know when I came out dreaming and the source is God, therefore, I know who God is.