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January 11th, 1916.
Received by:James Padgett.
Washington D.C.
I am here, Jesus.
I will continue my discourse
of last night.
I was saying that the Jews and the teachers of the church that
became established or rather controlled after the death of my followers,
and those who understood the true teachings of my disciples, taught
the conduct of men towards their fellowmen, and the observance of
certain ceremonies and feasts were the important things for men
to learn and practice in order to gain salvation, rather than the
truths which made man a child of the Father and at one with Him
through the operations of the New Birth.
Of course, before my coming, the Jews could not have taught the
truth of the New Birth, because the Great Gift of the re-bestowal
of the Divine Love had not been made, and it was not possible for
that Great Truth, which was necessary for Immortality and the possibility
of man's partaking of God's Divine Love, to be known to the Jews,
and hence, they could not teach it; and their teachings were limited
and confined to the things which would make them purer in their
natural love and in the relation of that love to the Father.
God, at that time, while He never gave them the privilege of becoming
at one with Him in the Divine Love or even of becoming such beings
in their character and spiritual qualities as were Adam and Eve,
commonly supposed to be our first parents, yet did require of them
obedience to His laws which would develop in them their natural
love to such a degree, as would cause it to become in harmony with
His laws that controlled and governed their natural love.
If you will study the Ten Commandments you will see that these
commandments deal only with the natural love and by their observance
would tend to make men better in that natural love, and in their
conduct with one another and in their relationship to God, so far
as that love brought them in communion with Him. This natural love,
as I have said, was possessed by men, just as the first parents
possessed it, and was never taken from them, and in its purity was
in perfect harmony with God's creation and the workings of His universe;
but not withstanding these great qualities men were mere men and
had in them no part of the divinity of the Father. And this being
so, the Jews, while they were supposed to be more in contact with
God through the prophets and seers, than were any of the other races
or sects of God's children, yet, never looked for a Messiah that
would come with any other or greater power than that which would
enable them to become the great ruling nation of the earth, to whom
all other peoples would be subordinated and subjected, and powerless
to ever again conquer or subject their nation to bondage.
In a way this Messiah was to be a kind of supernatural being, having
power which no other man ever had, and a kind of god to be worshiped
and served in their earthly lives.
Many of the Jews, notwithstanding what may be said to the contrary
and the teachings of the prophets, believed in other gods than the
one which Moses declared, as is evidenced in their histories, both
sacred and secular, for whenever their God, that is, the God of
Moses, did not treat them just as they thought He should, they would
create and worship other gods - even the golden calf. So I say they
never expected a Messiah who would be other than a most powerful
ruler on earth.
Their ideas and beliefs of the life after death were very hazy,
and even that part of them known as the Pharisees, who believed
in a kind of resurrection, never conceived that when they should
drop the mortal life, they would be anything different in their
qualities and characters from what they were as mortals, minus the
physical bodies, and the great increased happiness which would come
to them as such mortals, changed in their appearances.
This was the idea of the common people and also of the priests
and scribes; and notwithstanding the many beautiful and spiritual
psalms ascribed to David, the happiness or glory that they might
expect, was only that which would come to them as spiritualized
mortals having only the natural love.
So you see, the GREAT GIFT of the Father that is the rebestowal
of the Divine Love, was not known or even dreamed of by the Jews,
nor conceived of nor taught by their scribes, nor even by their
great prophets, or law-givers such as Moses and Elias and others.Their
conception of God was that of an exalted personal being, all powerful
and all knowing, and one whom they would be able to see face to
face, as they might any king or ruler when they should come into
the heavens which he had prepared for them, and where he had his
habitation.
I will defer the writing
until later.
Jesus
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