They Related Their Own Experiences

In the first chapter of the Book of Luke, it is stated that the disciples on their way back…the whole drama is over…and they encountered the risen Christ. And in one little segment they told what had happened. Moffatt translates this phrase, “they related their own experience.” The whole secret of the Bible from cover to cover is wrapped up in these five words if you know what they told. For here, they spoke in a different tongue. It’s recorded in Luke in Greek, but do we have the proper translation? There are many translations, and do we have the accurate one?

Well, let us go first to the opening of Luke, its preface the first four verses: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, as they were delivered by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things accurately for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed” (verses 1-4). Now, it seems a simple statement, this preface to the story he’s about to tell. He’s compiling a narrative of the things that have been accomplished. For, Christianity rests upon the affirmation that a series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. So he’s taken the events as they happened and he’s simply treating them as a narrative. That’s what he’s thinking.

Well, let us take just a few of the thoughts in this preface: “Things which have been accomplished among us.” Now you would think, well, in a way yes, in this room these things have been accomplished among a few in this room. That I do know. But the word translated “among” is the preposition “within”—things which have been accomplished within us…and yet among us because he uses the plural “us”…things which have been accomplished within us. Now you tell me what happened to you, and someone else will tell me, and I will tell you, and then we get together and see how they relate. We find they all are really related, these things. They differ somewhat based upon one’s temperament, but they are identical really. Although as you would express it, like playing a piece, no two would interpret it in the same manner but it’s the same piece. So these things have been accomplished within us.

Now, he tells us that “…as they were delivered by those who from the beginning.” Now here is the phrase “from the beginning” which simply translates two Greek words meaning “from the birth of God.” The drama starts from that birth, from the birth of God, that’s all he’s going to talk about. What happens to the individual from his physical birth to the end when he dies in this world means nothing…that has not a thing to do with it. What happens from the birth of God.

Then another phrase: “it seemed good to me also, having observed all things accurately for some time past.” Now, that phrase translates another Greek word, and you wouldn’t think it, to use that phrase “for some time past,” it translates the Greek word “anothin,” which means “from above.” He is telling you he did not get it from another. He didn’t get it from anyone in this world, from a book, from a man or anything; he got it from above. This word “anothin” is translated in the end of Matthew and Mark as “top.” When we are told “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom,” that word “top” is “anothin.” And these are two opposites, top and bottom. When John tells Nicodemus, or rather, in the Gospel of John, and Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, “You must be born from above,” that word is “anothin”—translated in all Bibles as “born again.” But the word literally means “from above, from the top.” It’s entirely different, the opposite birth from the bottom, that which is beneath, that which is inferior. All bodies in this world born of woman are born from beneath. They are born from the inferior part of man. Here, one must be born from the superior part, the opposite, from the top. So he said, “Having observed all things accurately for some time past,” well, that phrase “some time past” is simply a translation of the Greek word “anothin.”

Then, he addresses it, now, to “most excellent Theophilus,” for Theophilus simply means “one who loves God.” That fits anyone in this world. The word only appears twice in the Bible, in the beginning of Acts and the beginning of Luke. So they are really one book. In the ancient world, when you wrote a preface and the physical volume, the physical roll on which you wrote it couldn’t contain all you had to say, the preface was recapitulated in subsequent volumes, and so you carried it forward into another volume.

To read Acts to understand it, read the first four verses of Luke so you will see what he’s talking about. He’s not writing secular history. He didn’t get it from any man in this world. What happened to Neville in whom this whole drama has unfolded, what happened to Bob in whom it is unfolding, what happened to Christine in whom it has almost completely unfolded, that doesn’t really matter. If I lecture, and he writes, and she taught, that doesn’t matter. If we were injured or hurt or imprisoned or set free in this world, that doesn’t matter. He’s not telling anything about a man in this world. He is telling a drama, the story of salvation. He is taking a series of events as they unfolded themselves within many, (among us, within us). And then he takes the events and he simply makes a narrative, he dramatizes it in the form of a story. So if I know what actually he heard, well then, we have read the story to find out what he actually heard what they experienced. For in these five words is summarized the entire story: “They related their own experiences.” They told what had happened. Now, the next one, “they told what had happened on the road.” What road?

Here now is a letter from a friend. She said, “I had this experience. I was beastly tired, aching all over. I went to bed and I couldn’t meditate, I couldn’t imagine, because my body was aching so. So I said to myself, ‘Come, let us go elsewhere and leave the body here, and let it ache.’ So I fell asleep in that mood to move elsewhere.” Now the first part of the dream is not really relevant to the story, because it did not break forth into voice. When vision breaks forth into speech, the presence of deity is affirmed. So a dream in itself, yes, it does convey something, but only when it breaks forth into speech does it really confirm the presence of deity in a strong manner. So we’ll skip the first two because they were all related.

Now she comes to the third part of the dream, all on the same night. She woke and wrote down, woke and wrote down, and then the third one. She’s on a train, it’s an old train, and there are many people but she’s not interested in the others. She’s interested in the beautiful scenery as she looks out. Then comes the end of the journey. She gets off and walks to the end of the train. All the others get off. It’s the top of a mountain and they all start down the side of the mountain, and she is at the very end. She looks up and here is the conductor. The man is in uniform. He has this lovely benign expression on his face. He seems to ooze kindness and patience, and he is an old gentleman. She said to him, “Well, how did we get here?” and he said, “We went around and around and around the mountain, and climbed here.” Then she said, “Well, where are they going?” and he said, “They’re going back to continue the journey.” But she said, “I don’t want to go back. I want to remain here. I don’t want to go back to my aching body”—in her dream she remembers the body she left was aching—“and back to heartaches and confusion.” He said, “But you must go back, because scripture must be fulfilled.” Here only one purpose: To fulfill scripture. “Seven times must pass over you, the journey, seven times, and then you will know the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will” (Dan. 4:32). So he told her in the dream, “You must go back, because scripture must be fulfilled.”

Now the word translated “on the road” means also “a conductor, a guide.” But the word “conductor” is given in the concordance for that simple little statement “on the road.” So here, she is fulfilling scripture. But how often she goes back? You can’t go beyond the seven…but how many times more, I do not know. But she did reach a point…then she has to return and continue the journey to fulfill scripture. It is my hope she has made six journeys. But who knows but the Father? Only the Father knows.

Another lady wrote—this is something aside, and yet it’s part of the whole great drama—she said, “I was sitting at the table with my family.” She has five children. She and her husband and her oldest child, Leslie, began to talk and began to explain something. As she looked at him, she suddenly became aware that she’s looking from within herself. She is looking through her eyes, not with her eyes. And she was so fully conscious of the fact that she was within her skull, as something apart, and looking through and not with the eye. She wondered if they noticed anything strange about her when she came to once more, and once more saw with the eye? But from their behavior, there was no reaction to prove that they were aware that anything was strange with her. So she asked, “Is this in any way mentioned in scripture or in Blake?” Well, may I tell you, the last two verses or rather the last two lines of Blake’s wonderful vision called A Vision of the Last Judgment it’s clearly stated: “I question not my corporeal or vegetative eye any more than I would question a window through which I looked at a sight. I look through it, not with it.” Here, you find it in A Vision of the Last Judgment. He would not question his eye anymore than he would a window concerning a sight, for he looks through it, not with it. So you will know you were not alone in that experience, for he ends his wonderful Vision of the Last Judgment on these two lines.

Then comes a third. She found herself in this enormous home. It seemed the whole world was a home. And there were unnumbered rooms, some doors were closed and others were open. She never once opened a door, but there were doors open and doors were closed, and the whole world seemed to be a home. A perfectly beautiful woman came to her. She was young, dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin, and she said to her, “I want you to speak to them. I want you to tell them.” She opened a door and in they went in what appeared to be a perfectly wonderful church. There were pews and a crowd; all the pews filled, all the seats filled. She was shocked because she knew them all, and they were dead. They were all friends of her father who is dead and they had died. They were long gone from this world, and there they were seated in their pews. A man was on the pulpit speaking to them.

And then she said, right in the front pew there was one who was her Aunt Margaret. Now she said, “I didn’t know that Aunt Margaret was dead, but in my dream in this experience I am saying to myself Aunt Margaret must be dead too, for all the others are dead. But two years ago, when I went to Pittsburgh Aunt Margaret had a stroke. She was eighty years old and I haven’t heard since that she has died, but maybe she has. She sat in the front row. Then I said, I have a wonderful story to tell you. I began on the 2nd Book of Samuel, the 7th chapter, and began on the 14th verse; then I went to the 12th and at that point, Aunt Margaret said to me, ‘You’re talking about David.’ I said yes. Then I explained the relationship between David and Jesus Christ….that Jesus Christ is Father and David is Son. Then I went to the 2nd Psalm and I began, ‘I will tell of the decree of the Lord…’ and began to explain this promise of God to David that ‘thou art my son.’ Then I…suddenly I looked at these people. I came to an end, the man said to me, ‘May I continue to talk?’ the one who was speaking, and she said, ‘Yes, you may continue.’ And then I looked at these faces and they were just as though they’d never heard me. They couldn’t see. Their eyes were open, as though he’d put some veil between the outer world and their eyes. They couldn’t see, just as though they were blind and yet the eyes were open. They had eyes and saw not; they had ears and they heard not. So I looked at the young woman who had asked me to speak, and she nodded her approval and gave me great assurance from her smile that I had done exactly what she wanted. And then I woke.”

Now, dreams are ego-centric. She is teaching and teaching and teaching. She will continue the teaching, and her thrill will come when one responds, when in the deep one shows understanding—when one shows it really sees what she is talking about, when one actually hears with understanding. And so, the whole vast world is yourself pushed out. And we awaken by using this barometer. This is our world, and we, to the degree that we awaken in others, are we awake. For, “we love him because he first loved us” (1John 4:19); the world only responds to God’s action. And God in her is awakening, and as he awakens her world must respond. They could not precede her, for nothing can precede God. So we love him because he first loved us, and we couldn’t possibly begin to love God until God loves us—the eternal story of Pygmalion and Galatia. Where he makes the perfect image of his love and forms her beautifully, but she’s dead, she’s made of marble. He falls in love with his own creation, but she can’t respond, she’s dead. Suddenly, as he falls in love with her, he prays to the God of Love to animate her, to make her alive, make her flesh and blood that she can love him. The first word that she cries out is simply his name, and she cries from that pedestal, “Pygmalion.” So Galatia becomes alive, because he appeals to the God of Love. And he first loved her before she could love him. And the dead awake and respond, because you fall in love with your own creation. So the whole vast world is yourself pushed out and it cannot respond other than a response, in the true sense of the word, as you have acted. You act, and then it responds.

And so, the whole vast world…her world as she saw it, pew after pew after pew, and I can tell her it’s a most marvelous experience, a wonderful vision. And here, God was present because it broke forth into speech. The woman spoke to her, Aunt Margaret, spoke to her and voiced, “That is the story of David.” The very vision breaks forth into speech, therefore, God is present. And here, the most marvelous thing is being revealed to her: She has to so fall in love with others, not herself, others awakening. As she forgets self in awakening others, then she will awake; and they will awake…that’s the response. So here, in these five little words, “They related their own experience,” they told what had happened on the road.

Now, when I take the whole Bible and I try to find out what did he see, what did he hear, let me take nothing for granted, for these are written in Hebrew and written in Greek. And not being the scholar of either, I must turn to an exhaustive concordance, like Strong’s, that will give me the original meanings of the words used. Then, take no scholar’s interpretation for granted, go back and see exactly what it’s all about. Take, for instance, this simple little statement: “Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world…for I told you there’s one who comes after me who ranks before me, because he was before me” (John 1:15). And here is the lamb of the world. All through Revelation we speak of the lamb on the throne of God that sheds his blood for the sin of the world. You wonder, “What is it all about?” A little lamb shedding itself, destroying itself, and its blood saves me? And you wonder, “Well, it can’t be.” So we start looking up, and we start searching, finding out what this is all about.

We go to another who speaks of the lamb. Now listen to these words carefully, because Blake was one with complete open eyes. He writes this for little children, seemingly. He’s not writing for any little child. What little child could understand this? Oh yes, you can read it to a child and the child will say, “Daddy, read it again” or “Mother, read it again”…it’s so beautifully told. And he tells it in his volume called The Songs of Innocence: “Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little lamb, I’ll tell thee.” I’m going to condense it. “Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee: For he is called by thy name, for he calls himself a Lamb. Thou a lamb, I a child.” Now he says, “He is meek, and he is mild; he became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb, we are called by his name. Little Lamb, God bless thee!” He equates the two, the lamb and the child. Now, this little lamb in scripture, you look it up, it’s called “a lambkin.” It’s a young lamb that is slaughtered. It first appears in Genesis, when here a father and a son, and the son said to the father, this is Abraham and Isaac, Isaac said to the father: “I see the fire and I see the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham replied, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” You know the story. He was called upon to sacrifice his son and here the lamb is the substitute; for here the substitute is the child, they’re one, they’re the same.

Now we are told in the 9th chapter and the 10th chapter of Hebrews that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin” (Heb.9:22). And so, “he opened up a new way through the curtain, a new and living way through the curtain, that is, his flesh” (Heb.10:20.) Now you read it and you wonder, what is this new and living way? Well, the adjective “new” in this sentence, the new and living way, means literally “newly slain.” Now, “going through the curtain” is when the body is rent in two from top to bottom. You ask yourself the question, is that when the lamb was slain? For he doesn’t take the blood of another; he takes his own blood. Now, he is called the “perfect witness, the true and faithful witness, the first born from the dead” (Rev.1:5). I tell you, the only blood that saves you is your own blood. The day that you are split from top to bottom and see your own blood at the base of your own body, you fuse with it, and know it to be the blood of God, and you are he. And then up you go right into heaven in your own wonderful serpentine manner.

So, no other blood saves you; that moment in time when you are split from top to bottom and the pool of blood is revealed, that living golden light. But it comes nine months after your spiritual birth. Is that not a lamb? Isn’t that a child? You’re born on a certain day and nine months later comes that terrific blow that splits you in two from top to bottom. So, I am speaking only of the spiritual birth. To go back to Luke: “From the beginning, from the birth of the Lord…” and that birth from above when you are truly born and nine months later you are split right down the middle, from top to bottom. And then you fuse with your own blood, and up you go into heaven.

You will see the Bible differently…something entirely different. So our translators, marvelous as they are, brilliant scholars, but they do not see the Spirit because they have not experienced it. They cannot relate their own experience. They are interpreting the experiences of others, who wrote in a marvelous tongue, the Hebrew tongue and the Greek tongue. These brilliant scholars understanding these tongues bring to these translations their own pre-conceived notions of what ought to be. They are still ending by their concept that it is secular history and it’s not. It isn’t secular history at all. The entire drama begins with the birth of the Lord. And he cannot be born from below, for that which is born from below is of the earth earthy and that which is born from above is of heaven. So he said, “I am from above and ye are from below (John 8:23)…and flesh and blood, which is from below, cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1Cor.15:50).

So you must be born from the top, from above. And so, he begins the story with the Lord who is born from above. And then, tells the story of nine months after his birth he was sacrificed. Well, who sacrificed him?—the Father. And who is the Father? “I and my Father are one.” So it was a self-sacrifice, because only by the shedding of blood can I redeem myself. So I split the entire thing, and sever the two ages from top to bottom; and then ascend by this living light which I found at the base that I used to generate. It was done at the very bottom in the world of generation, the world of sin and death. And I redeemed it by fusing with my own blood, and arising into heaven.

So here, you see it entirely differently. The book is the Book of Books, and these five simple little words, “They related their own experience”…you see the whole book contained within it. If I could only find out what they related! Well, if I don’t know Greek, get the aid of a good concordance. If I don’t know Hebrew…and even if I do know it…get the good concordance. Because, if I could speak Hebrew fluently from beginning to end but I’m still prejudiced because I haven’t had this experience, I would still bring my prejudiced mind to the interpretations of the Hebraic text. So don’t bring it. Go and see what those who had the vision meant when they wrote it down.

Now in the Old Testament we have the foreshadowing, for the prophets visions are foreshortened and they see as present what is really future…because it’s happening. They all thought the whole thing was immediate. But then, the New Testament interprets the Old by the actual experience of those, and they saw what was foreshadowed had suddenly become a personal experience in them. And then they understood the prophecy of the Old. So the Old was simply a foreshortened vision, and all prophets, they see it so clearly, it’s taking place here now, therefore, it must be imminent, it’s now…but it isn’t. They see as present what really is future. And so, they waited for the fullness of time and when the fullness of time had come in the many, and they then began to tell it.

So, he does not claim for one moment that he is telling it chronologically exact, because he took your opinion as you had the experience, and mine. If I took Bob’s and if I took Benny’s, if I took Christine’s, and took my own, they differ. Yet they all are certainly moving parallels, all of them…but they differ. So I would take all. So he said, “In as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us.” Now that very statement “have been accomplished” in the Revised Standard Version is not in the King James. In the King James, “which are surely believed among us.” It’s not what they believe among us because we hear it; these have been accomplished within us. Not something that we have been taught and we believe it; we have actually experienced it. I could take Christine’s, I’ll take Bob’s, I’ll take Benny’s, and then I’m going to compile a narrative, and then tell it as these have experienced it, including my own.

So he does not for one moment claim that his narrative is a greater chronological exactitude. What he is claiming, it is a better arrangement of the source material, because many made the attempt. Now, we do not know how many made the attempt, but many made the attempt to tell it in narrative form. Luke felt himself best qualified to use that source material and to tell it in narrative form, so he told it. But I know from my own experience it is not chronologically exact. He begins with the birth and ends with the crucifixion. That’s just the opposite. Acts begins with the resurrection; he ends with the resurrection. The resurrection comes first. That’s when the whole drama takes place. I am first awakened within myself, and as I am awakened to find I’m actually entombed, and then I come out. That’s when the drama begins. And then I’ll take all the other events, one after the other.

Now he took them, but he wove the most glorious story around these events. So to repeat, our religion called Christianity is actually resting upon the affirmation that a certain series of events happened in which God revealed himself in action for the salvation of man. That series of events I know to be true, but they are not chronologically exact as told in the gospels, but they’re all present. You’ve got to ferret them out. The dove comes in the beginning and it doesn’t come in the beginning, it comes at the end. And the resurrection comes at the end in the story, and it doesn’t…that comes in the beginning. So he makes no claim that they are chronologically exact. But he does claim that he has the capacity and the ability to take the source material and make a better use of it. He told it in his most wonderful manner. So that is our story, so that you will not run all over the world trying to find some other way. There is no other way! This is The Way. If I know exactly what they experienced on The Way, well, I know exactly what they experienced, because I have experienced it in detail. Every little detail of that entire story I have experienced. And so, I know that I am not unique. Everyone will experience it, but everyone.

So I tell you, be patient. Just as my friend went to the top of the mountain and the conductor, which means “on the road,” and here he is, the authority, he’s in a uniform. His face is one of kindness, one of patience. He will wait forever. What are they doing? They have gone back to start and continue the journey; not to start it, but they continue the journey, so they go down again. So we come back to Daniel: Seven times passes over. “But I don’t want to go back.” Nobody wants to go back. The body pains, the body is aching, and there are heartaches waiting for me when I go back, and there are problems. But you must go back, because scripture must be fulfilled.

There is not a thing in this world for anyone to do but to fulfill scripture. To sit in the highest office in the world of Caesar, that may satisfy you and your family for a moment but it will sour, it will tire. You will maybe out last the job and become dotty. So I am told that our President Wilson the last two years of his life wasn’t here at all. People knew it, but they could not let you and me know that our President was not mentally capable of running the country. And for two years, he wasn’t here at all, mentally. I know that in England Churchill wasn’t. For the last two years of his life, he wasn’t here at all. They always propped him up to make him look out, like a dummy. Well, he outlived his time. But people still thought it was the great man, and he was completely gone. The body couldn’t stand the strain any longer. So no matter what you have, there comes that moment in time when the body wears out. So no accomplishment on earth really means anything in the end. It all will vanish and leave not a trace behind it.

But the everlasting story of God, which is the story of salvation, is contained in man, and at the proper moment it erupts. And that which was long buried within us suddenly and dramatically erupts within us. And then, we are he, the very being who buried himself in us. And who is it?—God. There’s nothing but God. There’s only God. And so, he actually buries himself in man, and then passes through the furnaces. So we come to that story again of the lamb. You’ll find it in the seventh chapter of Revelation: He asked, “Who are these who are all dressed in their robes of white?” And he said, “These are those who came out from the great tribulation and they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, washed them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Rev.7:14) Then read the next three, four verses, all in poetry, what is their eternal world, around the throne serving the risen Lord. No tears, no sadness, no need of anything, all washed in the blood of the Lamb. And you wonder, “What was their own blood?”

They’re called martyrs. Well, the word “martyr” really means “witness.” Look it up. We speak of a martyr and we think someone was killed innocently. No, he only witnessed his blood. He volunteered. He himself took his own life: “No one takes my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again. And this I have received from my Father” (John 10:17). So when I’m split from top to bottom, who did it?—my Father, well, he and I are one (John 10:30). That’s how I redeem myself by my own blood. How could you shed your blood and redeem me? No matter what the churches will tell you, it hasn’t a thing to do with that. At that moment in time, you’re going to be split right down from top to bottom, and then generation is over. Now it’s all regeneration, and you find yourself in a world that differs entirely from this. So set your hope fully upon this grace that is coming to you at the unveiling in you of the Lord.

So when you read it, take nothing for granted. Just get…I have it, it’s my daily companion…Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. Every word that’s used in both Old and New Testament is given there, and its original definitions. So, you can simply look at it. If you haven’t had the experience, try to ferret out what you feel it ought to be. When you’ve had the experience, you will know exactly what they intended it to be.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Q: ___(??) there are two accounts, two of the bird, and there’s a third time where the bird comes to stay.

A: No, three. Numbers in the Bible…three is associated with resurrection. On the third day the earth rose up out of the deep. So three and eight are numbers associated with resurrection. He rose on the third day, which would be the first of the new week. So if he’s entombed on the Sabbath and then he rises on the first of the week that would be the eighth day, for there are seven days to the week. He is crucified on Friday, as we’re told, entombed, he rests on Saturday, and then rises on Sunday. And Sunday being the first of the week in the Hebraic world, for Saturday is their seventh day. So on the third day he rose. And so the first of the week, which is the eighth day, is called the Christ day or the eighth number. Well, the third and the eighth are associated with resurrection. It’s figuratively speaking, not three as I would judge three days, for a thousand years is as a day in the eyes of the Lord. So you can’t judge it as a matter of days or years. It’s simply a way of telling you that this is resurrection.

Q: Then days can’t be used for time?

A: No. As we are told in the Psalms and told that in the epistle of Peter (2Pet.3:3, 8): “When the scoffers come scoffing, asking, where is he, he who is to come?”…they do not know a thousand years is but a day in the eyes of the Lord, as the 90th Psalm gives it to us, so that you can’t judge time in this sense at all. No one knows that moment in time but the Father…when it could be now, this very moment. Any one here could hear that wind that would possess them. And everything would become invisible to them, and they would enter that inn…as I quoted earlier tonight: “Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend. But will there be in the night a place to rest? A room for the slow dark night.” And then she asks or he asks once more, “May not the darkness hide it from my sight?” And then the voice comes back, “You cannot miss that inn,” can’t miss it.

There is an inn that you cannot miss. You always seem to be away, even if it’s only down the street, but you are away from where you live when it happens. You cannot miss that inn. It catches you unawares. You are called out, because you can’t stand what is taking place in you in the household. While you are out it happens and so while you are away from where you normally live. So she was away on a journey. I was five hundred miles away from where I lived. I was in San Francisco when I lived in Beverly Hills. Christine was away doing a chore for one who was a total stranger, almost a total stranger, a thing she never did before, to sleep in a person’s home…almost a total stranger. But the urgency seemed to demand that she would sleep there, went home, got her things and slept away from home.

My friend Bob was coming home from a walk where he couldn’t stand himself any longer, and before he got into the home it happened. So you’re always away from home. Benny was away. It’s always away. Why I can’t tell you, but this is how it’s written. So it’s constructed that way. I know in my own case, I hadn’t the slightest idea this was the day. I was 500 miles away. That’s where San Francisco is relative to Beverly Hills and that’s when it happened. So, “May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn.” Read it. It’s a beautiful poem by Christina Rossetti. It’s called Uphill and the road winds uphill all the way, just to the very end.

Any other questions, please?

Q: What is the meaning of “scripture has to be fulfilled”?

A: Scripture must be fulfilled in you, my dear. Everything said in scripture—prophesied in the Old and claimed as fulfillment in the New—will be fulfilled in you. And when it is fulfilled in you, you will know that you, yourself, are Jesus Christ. For you’re told in scripture, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” That’s what we’re told. The question is asked in the 13th chapter of 2nd Corinthians (verse 5). He stands surprised that those that he’s talking to are not yet aware of the fact that Jesus Christ is in them. They’re looking for a Christ on the outside. So he asks the question, “Do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you?” Well, if Jesus Christ is in me, all that is said of him I must experience as he awakens in me.

So, as scripture fulfills itself in you, all that is said of him you will know is true of yourself. You’ll be born in a supernatural way as he was born. You will discover the Fatherhood of God as he discovered it, and that you are God because his Son will call you “Father,” and that Son is David, as told us in the 2nd Psalm (verse 7). And you will have your body split from top to bottom, as you’re told in Hebrews (10: 19). And you will know you are split, not another. You aren’t seeing another, your own body is split. You are observing, but you know it is your own body. And then you will ascend, as you’re told in scripture. And the dove that descended on him which was the Holy Spirit descending on him in the form of a dove, it will descend on you.

Scripture must be fulfilled. So go on back…you’ve got to go back. You cannot remain here on this mountain top. The story in the transfiguration: “Let us remain here and build three, for Elijah, for Moses and for you. No, we must go down into the place” (Mat. 17:2-5). The time is not yet. We haven’t arrived at the time that you can stay. Go back down in that tired body and start the journey. And the journey goes on and on until finally you reach the point where suddenly it erupts within you and the whole drama unfolds within you just as recorded in scripture.

Now my time is up.