In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of coming into possession of a new phase of life through testing and obedience. He encourages the audience to interpret their challenges and trials as opportunities for growth rather than attributing them to the devil. The preacher acknowledges the difficulty of teaching in a series due to the inconsistency of the audience, but expresses a desire to delve deeper into subjects like prayer. He highlights the significance of confession as a platform for God's blessings and guidance in one's life.

I thought you wouldn't be very many out tonight, so my unrelief is horribly rebuked, and I have to have faith and to rejoice in God. Sundays is the day for everybody to be out, so I never expect too many out through the week because there are several reasons, and very often it's because our church people, as a rule, are not used to teaching. They're used to evangelism and other forms of ministry, but not teaching, so I never expect too many. So I sat here tonight and I thought, well, they're coming in and coming in my faith. Lord, where was my faith today anyway? But I have prayed that the Lord would send in the people who are to be helped. Now, he knows your hearts and knows you better than I do, and so I always ask him to keep away the people who won't be helped. There are people that I pray the Lord will not bring into the meeting because they don't know what's the matter with me. They don't know what the truth is, and they're stumbled and upset and get confused, so I just say, Lord, now keep them away and bless them very nice and make them happy and bring in the people who need help and know they need it and are anxious to receive it. Then, Lord, that creates an atmosphere in which I feel the Spirit of God can move. How many know what I mean? I don't mean to be naughty, but I really do feel that way. I have often prayed people out of the meeting and prayed them in. You remember when Jesus taught it was the same. He didn't have one message for everybody. He had a message for the multitudes, peculiarly the message with physical phenomena such as healings and visions and things which would attract the man physically. He used all of those, and he taught in fascinating parables and stories, but when he was alone with his disciples, it says, he expounded things to them. Do you see a difference already? Can you see a difference? Well, certainly. For without parables and miracles and all that, he did not speak to the multitudes, only with that. But when he was alone with receptive hearts, some that he could coach up a little bit more than the rest, he was able to open even more and more. And if you follow the gradation that there is in the fellowship of Jesus, illustrated in the New Testament by those who followed him, you will be surprised to find that he is always this center, and about him moves this multitude, and it gradually reduces and reduces and reduces and reduces until it becomes quite a unique little group who can really have an ear. Revelation, to him that hath an ear, let him hear. Well, people say, I have ears. Well, of course, we all have ears. He's not talking about that. But it's their capacity, the hearing capacity. Those who have hearing capacity, he says, listen. And he always has a message for it. And so in my teaching, I pray that those who have ears may come and may be able to receive something of the truth which God has given. I said Sunday, I am not original in truth. There is nobody who is original in truth, and there's no body, no group of people, and no church or no clique or no anything. There's no one has a corner on it. It's just too terrific. It's too big, tremendous to be crowded down into one little creed even. Our creeds are delicious and wonderful, but you know, after all, they can't contain the thing. Much of our teaching is purely suggestive. I know that. So there's nobody has a corner on truth. Everyone should contribute. In my reading, you'd be amazed at the things I read because I am able to find truth in so many, many places. He told me that long ago when I dedicated myself to God and he made me know he had called me out in a teaching mission and was asking me to dedicate my whole life to that field, he said, I'm going to give you truth, but I will give it to you in many, many prosaic places. Not always from just this Bible right here that you're reading, but life is a great book. Nature is a great book. The human heart is a great book. And he said, you will have to learn with me to detect and then to interpret. And I will give you truth from all places. And he has. He's not limited to just the Genesis Revelation. This is the written letter of the word. But truth is tremendous. We have this as the vehicle inspired of God. Nothing in the world like it. No man could write it. Divinely inspired, but it is the instrument. It is the word of God, but life moves through it. Life isn't in this, this. The life vibrates through it, though, through its message. So we have to learn that. And don't close your heart. Keep your heart open. That is able to speak to you in a thousand ways from a thousand tongues. Now, what I have to bring to you as I come season by season, it's nothing in which I am original. I have discovered truth. I have found it because I've dedicated my life to it. And I've asked God to make me one who is receptive. And as I discover the truth and discover the truth and discover the truth, it isn't mine. I don't make it up. I don't sit down and make truth. Ridiculous. You discover it. Then you ask God to give you powers of transmitting, to release it, to give it. And then there has to be receptivity in the person who has it. Then you'll get your blessed result. And so teaching is a strange ministry. I taught, of course, in public schools. I'm an educated man, if you believe it or not. I'm a college man, a seminary man. I know those fields very well, majored in all those subjects. And I know what it is from the teacher's standpoint. And to me, there's no vocation like it. It is unique. It's different. I do some preaching in with it, but it's a teaching message. And many people don't care for it because it's not too entertaining and spectacular. It requires this part of the body as much as this part. How many knows that? Know that. How many know it requires this part as much as this part? Yes, it does. And so I'm glad always to minister as far as able to each one in his own place. He told me something, I've said it before, and I tell it to you. When God brings you truth and you're not able to relate it perfectly to your system of thinking or even to your Christian vision, but you know it's truth, the Spirit will witness in you that's truth, but you can't get a hold of it, you don't know how to organize it, you don't know where it belongs, but you say that's the truth. But how to fit that into your scheme of thinking and into your life of living, you may not be able to do it in a moment, but the Holy Spirit in you will witness to truth wherever he finds it. He will witness to it. Now God said to me, you're going to find that. And when you can't relate it perfectly, because you don't understand it, and its philosophy clicks or doesn't click with what you have, I'll tell you something. He said, build a little shelf in your heart and quietly tuck it away in there. Now close the door, let it alone. No, you want to fuss with it, let it alone. Well, I want, let it alone. Well, why? You have no spiritual apprehension yet developed. All revelation in its approach has to, your heart has to be conditioned for revelation. You can't just spontaneously have revelation. No, your heart has to continually be built with powers of reception for the revelation. Then in time, as God comes along, there will be a place where that very truth is needed, and you'll be so glad you didn't discard it. You will be so happy to think, well, that's where that belongs. I heard a line on that a year ago, two years ago, and I couldn't fit it in with my little experience, but I always thought, well, I guess that's truth, all right, Lord. Yes, if you put it in there, how many get it? Do you get it? Then by and by, God will bring you to a place where that is the truth adequate, the only truth that will fit in to where you belong. So I have carried in my heart, on my shelf, pieces of truth thirty, forty, fifty years before I could find it, where it belonged. Fifty years of it. I've been baptized in the Spirit fifty-five, so I've been going a long time. I told them Sunday, I'm getting old, I'm over eighty years old, and here I stand as if I was forty-five, fifty or sixty, and I'm gay as anything. Isn't God good? He's good to me. He keeps me alive and alert. Yes, I'm over eighty, I'm an old lady, a gentleman. Somebody take me to heaven. No. Young, fresh, eager. How many know the Spirit keeps you alive? I couldn't carry on if I didn't have the Holy Spirit. The Spirit carries on in me. He said, let me get in there. I said, come on, Lord, I'm tired. Well, I can take over. Then he takes over. So in teaching, I have this privilege of breaking the bread into a hundred pieces. You have to get used to that. If you've come for a logically arranged little message, which homiletically is correct. Imagine, I taught homiletics in college years ago, a hundred years ago. I taught homiletics. Why haven't any more use for homiletical rules in my message than a cat? Well, why? I know the rules of a homiletically arranged message, its subject, its introduction, its illustration, its conclusion, the finale. I know all of that. But they're trying to put over in a lot of schools, you know. My goodness. I say, haven't they got out of that yet? I say, Lord, when will they ever wake up? No, my message won't follow that. So some people who come and say, well, that was a strange message. Well, it will be. It's just the thinking. I have a right as a teacher to do something that a lot of people don't understand. That is repeat, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat. I heard him say that before. Come around, dear, and I'll say it 12 more times, and repeat. Now, why? That's the prerogative of a teacher. For some only learn through the power of repetition, some by absorption. How many know some get it by absorption? I have people who come and listen, and listen, listen. And finally, it registers purely through a process of absorption. Not too strong mental processes, but absorption. How many get that? That's right. How many know you will receive from God by absorption, too, when your mental processes fail you? How? Keep very close to the Lord. Keep very close to the Lord. I have gained some bits of truth that have helped to revolutionize my life. Not through a logically arranged process of thinking. I've had that, logic, philosophy. I've had that, I know that. But by very close and intimate contact with the Living Lord, silently, quietly, do you know you can absorb, a process of absorbing. So it was my group, you're my students tonight. You're my students. And so that's the way I talk to students when I lecture and teach in the Heaven College of Audubon, they're my students. So I like to take that attitude. I will have to repeat, and repeat, and repeat. That's my prerogative. That's necessary because of the condition of the people to whom I minister. If I only want to tell you one thing, I can get up and say it, and then sit down, but that isn't it. I have a lot of truth that I want to handle. And so sometimes it's hard, like tonight, just for a vote. How many are here for the first time? Don't be scared. Now, put up your hands, please. Almost half of you. Almost half. Put them up. Just don't go. That's, pray for those who have rheumatism, brother. Good. That's right. So we take quite a little while getting through. Absorption, repetition, whatever method is necessary. Now, I have to do this way because I have a group of people tonight. Now, tomorrow night I won't have them. Now, tonight I want to start something that I know, I know when I start it won't work exactly because I can't get my people. I would like to teach in a series, but you can't have a series of more than two nights. No. Because the people you have tonight won't be here tomorrow night. Well, then what you have given tonight, the poor dears have it, and the next one coming the second night will say, well, what's he talking about? Where's your hook on? How many of you know that makes it very difficult in teaching? Terrifically so. And yet others have asked me, why don't you give a series? Can't you give us a series? That's what I would like to do. If I talk about prayer, I would like at least three to four evenings in a series to open that subject. Anyone can exhaust the subject of prayer in one message, I don't want to hear it. I really don't. I couldn't waste my time on it. No, it takes time. Now, they've asked for a series. Can't you give us something in a series? Develop so-and-so in the spirit? I said, I can't do it. I'm here too short a time, and you're too flitting. You're in one evening, out the next, and here you are, and tomorrow you won't be here. I said, I can't do that. It makes it too difficult. So I hope you'll take up with what I have, and don't be too severe in your criticism. I have reasons to feel this way. Tonight, I had hoped to work on that subject I'd suggested Sunday. We were dealing in the Garden of Eden. How many are worried with the Garden of Eden, are you? Now, those who come in tonight don't know what we're laughing at. How many know what you're laughing at? Put up your hands. Well, you weren't here Sunday, so you don't know what we're talking about. Will we ever get you to heaven where you can sit down and I can have you for three hours? How many think you could take a little bit more of the Garden of Eden, do you? Have you exhausted it? No. We worked two services on the parts of the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve. We've nowhere near exhausted it. But I want to go back to that Garden of Eden to deal with a little subject that I suggested Sunday, and some of you were concerned about it. How many of you know that question? Yes. Now, in a series, I wonder if I could do maybe two tonight, I would like it. Around eleven, they have a coffee break at eleven, don't you? Yes, that's good. So, yeah, I thought so. I would like to deal with maybe two questions tonight, and maybe two tomorrow night, because I only want to deal with four. Now, what do you mean? I mean questions which God has asked, or have been asked, when they already know the answer far better than the person to whom they asked the question. And yet that looks so simple. But I found it, and God put me on the chase of it. I said, Lord, that's a strange thing, that here's a question. You ask a question which you know more about it than the people, then why do you have to ask such a, such a funny question? Well, that got me going, because I get starved off on almost any tangent. So, and then I get my Bible out, and I go to work. And I said, well, that, that's repeated another time. And by and by, I find, well, he's doing that again. Then I find he's doing it again. And I look, now he's doing that again. I got, I got four of them already lined up. Four times where he will ask a question, and he knows all the time, all about it. Well, when he does that, I'm just foolish enough to say, Lord, you must have a reason for that, or you wouldn't do it. How do you think he would have a reason for it? Well, now it's for us to detect that. So tonight, for a little while, let's get in, as far as possible, in with two questions, and see if we can discover a reason for such an arrangement as that. Now we'll go back to the Garden of Eden, where we've been working for two services, concerning the creation and the, we call it the fall of man, but I wish we couldn't use that term. The fall is not mentioned in the Bible. Death is mentioned in the Bible. But the fall of man is a phrase which we use in theology. You can't find the fall of man in the Bible. We find a word stronger than that. We find the word death. In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely fall. No! In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Death is the penalty. He falls, of course, in one sense of the word, from his lovely level of grace, into sin and bondage. But that doesn't cover the whole episode of sin and disobedience. That's only one phase of it. But why limit just this marvelous thing called the death of man to one phase, that he fell from grace? That's only one phase of the death! Go back to what God said, in the day thou eatest thou shall surely die. But to get theology all mixed up, and phraseology, and church phrases mixed in with your religion, and it's hard to get to God, and you're all wrong. Now, I found that a hard way, because I was taught and taught and taught. College and seminary and all the way through, taught. But so many things I had to unlearn after I had spent twenty years learning them. Now, that's hard, but it's right. I was a good, faithful student. But I had to unlearn, oh, so many things which I faithfully learned! Because it was not the truth, it was theological exposition. Man's traditions. The church's way of looking at this. How does my church look at it? How does the other church look at it? How many know that isn't yet the truth? Now you're getting church-minded. Our church teaches this. I don't care what your church teaches. Well, my church always stood for that. I don't care about that! What does the Bible say? Well, then I'm a heretic! As soon as I teach like that, then I'm a heretic! I'm a happy one. You need not pray and put your hand and let me weep on your shoulder. I'm not crying about that. I'm only too happy to have discovered some of these things and found my place in liberty, for which I praise God. I don't want to, again, be bound under the bondage of a whole lot of religiosity, tradition, religious habits, church stuff. I don't want to be bound by it. This is all I need. It has brought me life and will take me back again to God. It will do the same for you. And in that terrific episode in the garden there, the third chapter of Genesis, we find a tragedy, a disaster. In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die. Well, we know that he didn't relate to the physical act because he lived three, four hundred years, three hundred and something other years. His body didn't fall right over in a corpse when he ate it. Well, something died. In the day you eat it, you will die. Well, then, he didn't die physically. What died? That spiritual contact in God, that sweet, holy breath of God which had come down to actuate and dominate in this trinity of spirit, soul, and body, which man is. Man is a trinity. He is spirit, soul, and body. The Holy Spirit was the breath of God who dwelt in the spiritual power of his being, a capacity for God which is born and brought into man. Adam was made with that spiritual capacity. He was made with capacities and gifts for his physical, psychic life, and physical life, but also given capacities for truth and life. That was the life of God that actuated in him, and he was dominated, and he lived under the power and the control of that life of God, the will of God in him. Now, he says, when you take of the forbidden fruit, that will be cancelled. You will die. Your physical body, your intelligence, your psychic life, that whole great phenomena of life, that will all remain, but it will be ruined. It will not function normally as it should. It will be thrown under a law. Law? For that you talk about law all the time. The world is full of law. The whole world is built on law. Your Christian experience, as much as you've got tonight, is built on law. I'm not talking about the Ten Commandments. Let that go for ten minutes. I'm talking about a law which governs in the mechanism of a whole human being. The structural law which governs is held by law. That is control. Now, he says, when sin has come, that has been thrown into terrific disorganization. That's why the grand, glorious intelligence that was gifted in Adam has totally collapsed until now, he says, what little you are able to get in knowledge you earn by the sweat of your face. And after several thousand years, we have an electric light. You think electricity is a new thing? Well, there's nothing new under the sun! There's nothing new! We only make discoveries. We make discoveries, but there's nothing new. Never. Nothing new. And so, he says, in the day thou either serve, thou shalt surely die. That is, this whole thing will be thrown into disorganization. All of his mental life is confused, distorted, his processes broken down, that he is working continually under a shadow. Even your physical frame will suffer, and in the end it'll die. Do you think death was in the thought of God when he created Adam? What a ridiculous! No, no. Death is the result of sin. Death is the result of sin. That's one of the hangovers. That's a bit of the result of that terrible catastrophe of disobedience. Death wasn't in his program. I'd like to talk a while on that, show you why I know that. Oh, you want proof? I'll prove it, dear. I have it right here, right in this lovely book that I just love. I have the proof of it. I wouldn't dare to tell you things that I didn't know I had proof of. It's not my proof. It's the word of God. It's the lovely truth. So he said, you will thus fail. Well, they of course partook of the fruit, and Adam died. Now, as I've said Sunday, very few people ever stopped to think. Let me tell you something. The last time God had talked with Adam, he was a living, brilliant, vibrant spirit. Holy, and sweet, and lovely, and innocent. This time when he comes down in the garden to deal with him, is the first contact he has with a dead Adam. How many know that, Stu? Put up your hands! Come on, put them up! Thank you. We don't think about those things. I say that because I feel intense in these things. I feel the spirit of God so intense I can fairly scream when I get up, and I have to be polite. No, this is God's first contact with a dead Adam. But he still has communion with him. He still has access to him. Isn't it sweet? So man is born dead. A broken down wreck that God has access to. All of his wreckage does not hinder God coming and bringing us out of our wreckage and confusion into a glorious new creature in Christ Jesus. A thing that has never lived on the earth before. Not this thing, but a new creature that we are in Christ. Miracle, isn't it? So when he comes down, he deals with Adam. What is the first thing that he says to him? What is the first thing that he says to this dead man? He asks him a question. Adam, where art thou? I can't help but feel pathos in that. I feel a tenderness in it. As I said Sunday, that is the first little vision I have of a broken hearted God. He did not come down to rebuke him. He came down to salvage and to bring him through. He did not come down as a judge. He came down as a mighty God who would bring redemption to this whole chaotic thing. The whole world is swirling through time in its wreckage. That was the lovely marvelous hearted God. Don't you love God? How many love him? I want you to love him. I want you to love him. All I can feel when he approached him was a pathos, a disappointment. Oh Adam, where art thou? Now listen, how many of you know God knew where he was better than Adam did? Do you think Adam had any consciousness of the devastation he brought to this universe? Do you think Adam knew then the devastation that has projected itself for these thousands of years in a broken down creation and man under a law of sin and death? Do you think Adam had any idea of that? He just was conscious of the fact that he had lost his contact with God. That sweet access, that sweet oneness had been ruined, illustrated by the idea of garments. And he was unclothed. He's not talking about whether he had a coat on him or a shirt. He's not talking about that. Morally and spiritually he was stripped. Morally and spiritually he was naked before God and had no life and no access. But God in his great mercy, our great God, how wonderful he is. He could move down. And he says, oh Adam, where art thou? Why? Because he had failed in these two great objectives. Adam had been made for the glory of God and Adam had been made to bring to God a peculiar pleasure that no other thing in the universe could bring. No angels could bring it. No creation thing could bring it. But man, in his response, because he's created in the image and likeness of God, he can offer back to God the thing that the heart of God has always hungered for. He cares tonight more about a fellowship in you than anything on God's earth. He cares more about the fellowship of your heart with his than he does anything in the world because it is something that only you can give. People can do so many things. He wants you to become something. Not do, but become. Not do, become. The do is so simple. The becoming is a divine process which will last till we move into God. And even in the next age I expect to grow, do you? Yes. It's merely the releasing of the seed plot here. The little seed plot. The little potential. Glory to God. Just the little potential here. Years to get it in shape. Released and projected through the eternal ages as a media for the glory of God and to give his heart pleasure. Do you see that? That's what life is about. That's the kind of thing I want people to see. As I said to my little sister Wells where I said I'd give money tonight if certain people would go to a meeting and let me help them. I would give them money to do it because they don't seem to know it. They don't seem to know it. I have offered it. I remember in school years ago when I was teaching and I had some precious students. Some of them were quite immature, but the more immature you are the less you seem to know anything about God. And so I could excuse them because they didn't know much. They were all saved and baptized to the Holy Ghost and they had gifts and everything marvelous, spectacular, tremendous, super expedulious if you really want to know. But they didn't know what he said. And I remember too, one of them had a briefcase. I think he had two or three little sermon outlines which he had dug out. He had done something tremendous because he had found two or three thoughts. God bless them. That's all right. And they were tremendous. And he'd been out and preached several times under the anointing I guess he called it. I don't know. And he had quite a time. But to have him sit still and let me lecture, he just couldn't seem to take it for the awful itch of to the work and tremendous things which were to issue from the gift which he held. And oh, it was all I could do was keep my place teaching. So I went to him one time and I said, now listen dear, I don't want to be too wild with you, bad, but you don't know who you are yet and I want to help you. I'll be as gentle as I can and as kind as I can. Now I will give you so much a lecture if you will come in here and listen. I really did. I said I will pay you because you don't know enough to know you don't know. Because you know what that is. How do you know that's a bad place to be? And I said you don't know enough to know you don't know. But I do. I will pay you. Well of course he was a little chagrined. Naturally he had sense enough for that. But it, well it held him for a little while. But he was always very difficult because he had tremendous visions of the world being redeemed and the power of God falling and the nations being brought in and boy I don't know where he was going, obviously his coat tail off there on one of the clouds, that's about the last I could see of him. It was so terrific to me. Well, you want to know the sequel? I think it was three or four years later. I was teaching in a convention. I didn't know the man was anywhere near me. I didn't even know he was in the same state. And I gave my message and after the message I always like to be alone with the Lord a little while. I like to be away just a little while. And it was dark back in the church in kind of a long lane and I was walking down there thanking the Lord for the meeting and loving him. How many ever go out to love the Lord? He's so beautiful. I think he's wonderful. And as I was walking somebody came up behind me with an arm over my shoulder and kind of scared me. I said yes. Well here was my dear boy. He'd been in the work about three years and had learned two or three things. Do you know his first words? Oh for that he said. I wish I could go back to school now and listen to those lectures. He says I've been out in the work and I wish I could. I said listen dear, school is out. And it was out. I was out of school. How many get the point? There are certain times of visitation. Certain times of opportunity. Certain times when God says thus. But if we're too stupid we don't know the difference and we let it drive. But he'll always have somebody around to help him. And so here this question. Come back. Where are thou? Now God knows all about that. Well then why did he ask it? Well you'll find it out by running over your story two or three times. What happened? Well Adam began to pour out his heart honestly. They didn't have to have a special meeting for conviction and all of them throw the Holy Ghost conviction on him. No. They just let him talk his heart out. And so he said well Lord God thus and thus and thus. How many remember the story? The story. He took the steps. Of course first was this. How many know the defense mechanism that always has to come in first? I mean those are no psychology. How many know all those? The Bible's full of it dear. The wife whom you gave me, she was the mother. Of course I wouldn't have done it but she did. How many get that or can't you? Did you ever feel that? I think the people in the world call it passing the buck don't they? Yes. Yes that's what they call it in the world. But this is old Adam. Such a performance as that isn't something new. It's as old as Adam. And so finally he works around and he works around till he spills it all out. And then he finally says and we did eat of the forbidden fruit and so and so and look at the mess. And that was a terrible thing wasn't it? Then God begins to tell him the result of it. He hasn't got him through yet. He begins to let him feel in his conviction what he has done. Cursed be the earth for your sake. He didn't curse Adam. How many know he never cursed Adam? We are under a curse. He cursed the earth. Cursed be the earth for thy doings. And all the animals and all that had to go into a subjection for which they were not accountable at all. I never go to a zoo and see a poor lion. I always feel apologetic I think you poor thing. God never made you like that. Never in the world, never in the world, never in the world. But that is a result of sin in the world. Your ferocity, your ugliness, your blood thirst, all of that is a result of sin in the world. God never created you to go and jump on something and kill us. Never in the world. But he said cursed judgment upon all creation for your sake. I have a redemption for you. So he lets him sense that. Then the next thing he says, and he clothed Adam and Eve with garments of what? A slain little animal. How do you get your first shedding of blood? The first picture of the shedding of blood is there in Genesis. It's God slaying an innocent animal that he might have a covering. How many can see the Lord Jesus? He's showing us redemption. You see the covering wasn't just a little skin. That's the symbol of it. That's alright to have an animal I suppose. That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about this strange mystical symbol which is before them. Three figures and speaks of a covering of righteousness through the shed blood of the Christ. And that would be enough to cover. So he covers them. So now you'll see three things. You see God giving them an occasion for growth and development. By doing what? Subjecting them to a law of testing and proving. Now your law of testing and proving is in the second chapter of Genesis. As soon as man is created, a law of testing and proving is introduced. Why? Now please remember. The law of testing and proving such as here's the tree, the possibilities of right or wrong. You have a strange part of your makeup and the personality set up is a power to will. Now that power of will has to function. And you can't make a power of choice over a one thing. How many know you have to have two things at least to make a choice? Or three? How many know you can't make a choice over one? That's ultimate. How many of you follow me? This is a teaching. You've got to follow me. Of course I'm going to work at it. You have to have, that is one. Now listen. He gives them a choice of two. Why? Because this strange gift in them of the power to will and choose has always been what? Centered in God. That they chose with God. And they chose with God. God revealed his will and they were there to have their wills lined up with it and all would will together. God willing, they willing in the will of God to control, possess, move out into what I would call like a building and releasing of universe which was still held in its infancy in its potential gifts. He wanted it released. And Adam could choose it. We don't know how long he did choose with God. Sometime I don't think it was too long because the devil hates it. And the devil isn't going to let God have his way with man any length of time because he wanted to come in and spoil the whole thing. How many of you know the devil hates every one of us in this room tonight? He'd like to kill every last one of us if he could. I know he would. Because that old ancient, ancient, ancient antagonism of wrong over against right, how many of you know it's as old as that? And that's what we feel sometimes in us. The antagonism of the enemy against anything that is right or good or what God would have. Don't be afraid. We have one who has conquered him. We have one who has conquered him. And perfect love casteth out fear. Perfect love casteth out fear and I don't need to fear. However, I'm very well aware of it. I have never reached such a state of grace that I don't know the devil in the universe. Oh no, he doesn't want me to. And so, come back here. Perfect love casteth out fear and I don't need to fear. However, I'm very well aware of it. I have never reached such a state of grace that I don't know the devil in the universe. Oh no, he doesn't want me to. And so, come back here. He shows them what will happen and he blesses them and gives them garments. So first you find placing in the garden with the power to choose, but his power of choice must be exercised. It must be exercised between a positive and negative issue. He says, choose positively with me and live. If you choose negatively in disobedience you shall surely die. Choose with me. He warns him, perfectly warns him. Now as a result of the poor choice, chaos has come in. The ruination has come. Why in the beginning did he dare to put that tree with such a business as that? I've had some of them come. Brother Follett, after God had got them all fixed in the garden and everything was so beautiful and everything was wonderful and they were in his image and likeness and gave them something to do, why did the Lord go and have a tree like that in the garden? Do you think the devil planted it? Oh no, no, no. God planted it. Oh, I don't think I understand God. No, I say, none of us do. Fairly. How do you think you really understand God? Oh no, no, no, no. Well, he blessed me. He blessed me last Tuesday. Yes. How do you know, how do you know you can get blessed to death and not understand very much of anything? Yes, that's true. I'm glad you let me say that. You aren't mad at me, are you folks? All right. Don't kick me out yet. I'm not quite finished with this. Well, I said to them, if the Bible says God planted the tree, and God planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, well now why? Well, let me help you. When God creates Adam and he stands there, a correct, beautiful specimen of God's idea of man, as I said, neither approach as a human being, he is a trinity, as a personality, a dynamic living spirit in touch with God, he is a trinity. And God looked at that strange, wonderful creation, which he had made to glorify him, and to give him pleasure, and to show forth a very image and likeness, for it says he's made there. As he looked at it, he said it was good, very good. But listen, Adam hadn't functioned yet, had he? No, no he hadn't, no he hadn't. That blessing, did you get it, dear? Yes. He hadn't functioned. The blessing came upon him as he stood in his perfection as a man. You like theology tonight? Come on with me. He stood there in perfection as a human being. But the human being had been made for the glory of God. How can that glory be released and duplicated in Adam? Only through a law. Law of what? Testing and proving. Testing and proving. And so he says, Adam, I see you in all this glorious creation, and it's perfect, and I'm well pleased. Now I want you to function. Now I want you to grow, and display, and bring forth to my heart the glory that I have longed for. I want to see duplicated in you the image and likeness of God in its miniature fashion in a human being. I want to see that. I can only do that by you exercising this strange gift I have put in you. I have put a gift in you which determines the whole thing and even the destiny. It is your power to say yes or no. Yes or no. I warn you, say yes. Say yes. Say yes. For when you say yes, do you know what happens? There's a releasing. There's a maturing. There's a growth. There's a coming into possession of a phase of life that he didn't know before. How many can see that? Come on, put up your hands. Everybody, please. I'll give everybody a dollar if you'll do it, please. I want you to be awake when I'm talking. Are you awake? Are you following? Are you getting help? All right. Now he says, after you get through this test, people said, what do you think would have happened if he hadn't? If he had just been obedient, he would have had another tree. He would. Why? Because life is full of trees. How many have a little forest of your own? Listen, how many of you can interpret your tree? Most people can't. They say, this is of the devil. This is a terrible. Everybody come, let's pray this thing out. You bring a promise. Now we'll get a promise. You get a promise and we'll get here and we'll tap this tree down. God doesn't want any such a tree in his tent. How are you to God? And you go whacking and tapping and claiming promises and fasting and praying and pulling the tree. Let your tree alone. He planted the tree. He planted the tree for your edification and my edification. I don't want to fall and get edified. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. How many know it is the only way of growth? I know one mission, and I've heard it corroborated from other sources, and I know one mission, this isn't the same one as I've been told of, where the preacher has a very live church. It's thoroughly Pentecostal. Now, I'm Pentecostal, so when I speak that word, don't think I'm not. I'm 100% Pentecostal. How many of you know that? 100%. But how many of you know I don't fit into all Pentecostal patterns that there are? I can't, because I don't think many of them are really correct. But I'm Pentecostal in my experience and I believe it and teach it. And this pastor, imagine this pastor, he was giving instruction and the people wanted to grow in grace and he says, the way to grow in grace is to get blessed and blessed and blessed. He did, actually. And he does nothing but the first part of that meeting, he just gets them all roaring. And he knows he can't, but he makes them roar. And there they go. Now, to me, I think that's very horrible. I'm Pentecostal, but I cannot take that, because I don't think that's God. Not at all. You don't grow by getting blessed. Getting blessed is entirely a different thing. It has an edifying power upon your individual spirit at times, that part's alright. How do you grow? By being blessed and blessed and blessed? No. Don't you see the results? How many of you have seen people who have been in Pentecostals for 20 years and they haven't grown an inch? That's true. And how many of you know they get blessed to pieces? Well, what's the matter with them? They have been ill taught. That's all completely wrong. You do not grow because of an emotional reaction in you which makes you feel happy and blessed and glorious. You don't grow by that. You grow by a law of testing and proving which God instituted in Genesis. If you want to grow in grace and knowledge and wisdom, I'll tell you something. God will subject you to all of the discipline that's necessary to prove it. Do you know that or don't you know that? You'd better know it. You'd better know it. Now maybe tonight I can help some people interpret some of the messes that they've had to go through. They said, how could God, a loving God, allow this thing? Well, because people usually call for what they get, if they do. How many of you know children call for the discipline they have? Does a father just start out and say, I have to discipline my child. Come here, dear. And he gives him a licking. Well, why? Because you have to discipline him. Well, doesn't it say discipline the child and train it? Doesn't it? Got scripture for it. Fair enough. Train him up. Takes old bachelors to tell how to raise children. Well, I know more about folks that have young ones. They're all happy with them, but they're too localized. Now, just for a minute, let me help you. How many of you know a parent has not the perspective, even of his child, that an outsider has? No, he has not. Your child is purely a projection of your own life. It is a projection of you. And no one has yet hated his own flesh. And so he stands out here in need. Now, do you see why the parent can't always see the way through? No, they can't. They're not supposed to. They just can't. How many of you know an outsider, perfectly detached, no connections, no meaning for it, he stands over here. How many of you know he gets entirely different perspective? How many of you know very often it's the real one? Then how many of you know they say, well, you never had a child. I don't need to. How many can get that or can't you get that? Now, a lesson on child training. Who knew I was going to throw that in tonight? I didn't. But how many of you know it's true anyway? Well, that's good for people to know. Now, that's the way it is in God's family. All the discipline that I've had from God, and I've had plenty, I demanded it. I really did. Why? Because of the thing that you are, dear. God doesn't damn you and condemn you and mad at you because you're what you are and what I am by nature. He never comes out and says, why did you get born with black hair? Well, I don't know if that's the way I woke up. Why did you get born with a temper? How many of you think God sits up at night before the babies are born and he says, now, that one I'm going to give an awful temper. This one I'm going to make a musical one. She's going to sing like a lark. And this one, I don't know, his parents never did amount to much. I'm going to make him an idiot. And so, how many of you think God does such foolish stuff as that? No, God is not a respecter of persons. And I hear people all the time say, well, this is the way the Lord made me. Well, I say, did he push you up? How many of you know, born as we are in the natural, God never made us this way. This is a creation made from a broken mold. Yeah, the mold is broken. And all of us have come down through life, through a broken mold. We are born in the sin. In sin did my mother conceive me. My whole old creation is a chaotic ruin. There's little patches of pretty things on most of the lot of people. How many of you know the old creation has some very attractive things in it? Or did you think flesh in the old creation was just getting rotten? No, no. How many of you know the old creation has many beautiful features about it? Don't you know that or don't you? Well, certainly. It's merely the beauty of an old chaotic ruin. I've been all over Europe and I like these old cities where you have the old cathedrals and broken down castles. Oh, England. Those magnificent ruins. I'm an artist and I can see the beauty in the whole business. Those ruins, majestic and lovely, with vines over them. And you see them in certain lights. Do you know they are beautiful? What are they? Ruins. How many of you know a ruin can be most fascinating, most beautiful? Well, what is it? It's a ruin. I've seen some of those ruins. I was more pleased to see it that way than this church when it stood like that. Well, to me, many people are colossal Adamic ruins. Do you get me or don't you? They are colossal Adamic ruins. I have some Christian scientists who are friends that couldn't be more polite and cultured and sweet and lovely and generous and kind in the world. Not one of them Christians. Well, what is that? Well, that is cultured flesh. I call it pink flesh. Well, isn't it? And you couldn't say it was wicked. It's just a cultured pink flesh. Why? Because the whole old creation is doomed. Everything in it is doomed. That's why when we are saved, we have to become new creations. Not only creatures, but new creations in Christ Jesus. Now that's what he sees. So coming back, he had to make a law of probation, testing and proving to release and set free all the potentials that were hidden in Adam waiting to be developed that Adam could have come forth in a glorious display to the glory of God and his well-pleasing. How many of you know he did see it finally? Where? In the last Adam. Oh dear, I'd like to take nights or two on that. I want you to see how the heart of God, that loving heart of God that came down in the garden that night and morning and said, Oh, where art thou? And his disappointment and pick up. I would like to see that same wonderful heart of God being thoroughly satisfied and pleased. How? Glory to God in his beloved son who became the last Adam because the first one was a colossal ruin. The last Adam takes that place exactly and goes through every bit of the disciplines and training, all of it with joy. No, the joy set before him he endured. Not because the joy in him he got by. No, that vulgar and harsh is horrible. No, for the joy set before him he endured. He walked with eternity always before him. I wish people could do that more. We are too time-bound. We walk under the consciousness of time. No, walk under the consciousness of the eternal and it'll help change you. So in Jesus he found it. How do you know? Because I found it. What happened at the baptism when John went to baptize Jesus? And Jesus now is showing his identification with humanity. Remember? He is showing his identification with humanity. He is the perfect Adam coming down. Coming down. Bound by the same limitations as Adam and as dependent as Adam. He never fell back upon the fact, I am the son of God. No. That's all hidden away in the depths of his being. But he wears this garment of humanity about him. He is clothed with humanity. Sweet, precious Lord. Don't you love him? And as he comes down and John baptizes him, the heavens open and God says, do you know who this is? He's the prophet. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. How many of you get the pleasure effect right away? How many get that? In whom I am well pleased. The pleasure that I should have had in Adam, I am finding it in all of its fullness in my glorious son. How the father must love his son. How God must love his son. So he says, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. My heart is getting gratification. It's satisfaction. It's pure satisfaction. I want it in that Adam. When he's failed, I find it in this last Adam. Does he do it again? Yes. Mount Transfiguration. He has carried it steps and steps and steps farther from the baptism all through this marvelous, tremendous living. Ready for his home going, but he has to stay here to be crucified for you and me. But as far as that humanity is going, how many know he had perfected it? He had brought it through to its perfection. Absolute perfection. And so he goes up into the mount. And what happens? The heavens open. And a voice, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. How many see the gratification in the heart of God in him? Why? Because Adam never gave him that, his son. Now he says, hear ye him. Now we come back to our Sunday morning's message on the voice. How many of you remember it? How many enjoyed that message? How many got something from it? It was a very, very wonderful word. God gave it to me, I'm sure. Terrific. There's the word. Hear ye him. Well, why? Because now the whole message is crystallized and has become vocal, articulate. Do you see what I mean? The message that he came to bring has become articulate and perfectly vocal in the expression of the Son. And he becomes the medium, and medium, and instrument through which... He is the dedicated voice through which God can speak. He is the voice of God, articulate, incarnate in flesh. The voice becoming man. And at this instant he says, hear ye him. And he begins that lovely, lovely unfolding. How many can see that? Do you get it? Do you get it? I want you to get it. So we'll come back to the question. Adam, where art thou? What follows? A confession. A confession. A confession. Why? Because the confession becomes the basis for the blessing of God, who will move upon him and show him the way of redemption. Now get your three steps. Question for information? No. No, no, no. Question is a method. It's a technique. Where art thou? Calls forth a confession. I am this. Now you have made the confession. That makes a platform upon which I can rest and move. I rest and move in your hearts according to the platform of a confession which you will offer. And anyone who can offer a confession, it becomes the platform upon which God will move. How many can see that? That's a law. We had that law a few minutes ago of testing and proving. Now here's another one. It's more or less a principle. I've only done Adam. Tonight's time to go home and I didn't do the other one. I have three more questions. Do you think you can come three more times and get this thing thrashed out? How many think you could possibly do that? Well, those who don't think you can, I'll give you some money if you'll come. If that would help you, because some people don't know. They don't know. I said to today, I said I would pay some people money if they would come. Not to listen to me. I don't mean that. How many know I don't mean that? I mean I want them to get truth. And God pours the truth through me. I said I want them to get it. Lord, make them see it. Make them see it. It'll deliver them. They will yet sometime thank God for even one message. Even one message has been known to deliver people. People have come often, often, after one message said, Paulette, the only thing I got out of this whole message, I am perfectly delivered in my spirit. The message has been so liberating, it's delivered me. Another one come. It's answered the question I've had for 40 years. Well, come. Maybe you'll be helped. Don't cut your trees down. Learn how to interpret them. Don't try to grow by being blessed. He will give you all the blessings you need. Your growth depends upon a law of testing and proving, eternally so. The law here is question. Your answer is a platform and the blessing of God will come. Tomorrow night I want to take up another one in Genesis 2. That will deal very much along the line of prayer. Some people need help about prayer. And so those who want me to talk on prayer, you'll get that sandwiched in with the others. So, if you want, how many of you think you can get out again? How many got anywhere tonight? Did you get where? God bless you. God bless you. Come as often as you can and by the grace of God I'll try to break the bread to you with truths that can be applied in your daily living. How many are being released through the message of truth? How many are encouraged? How many sense you can grow by knowing these things? Our loving Heavenly Father, we thank you for this evening. We thank you for being with us as we've broken this bread. We didn't get very far, but this is as far as we know to go. And so, Lord, take this bread tonight and bless it to every heart and grant that in the days to come the truth that's been given tonight may find lodgment in good ground, seeds that will sprout and grow and bring a harvest of Christian life pleasing to thee for Jesus' sake. Amen. God, thank you for your good attention. Good to listen.