The World Is a Stage

God the Father has given himself to us. Yet this gift is still to be realized in experience. It remains a goal to be attained. Let us see how you and I, who possess the gift, become aware of it. I absolutely believe 100 % the statement of Shakespeare in As You Like It. ¶All the worlds are staged and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts: he confines the parts to from the cradle to the grave, beginning with the little infant mewling and puking in his nurse's arms, and ends with the end, where a doting man sans teeth, sans eyes, sans everything.

But I'm going to expand that beyond this little section of time from the cradle to the grave, because I speak from experience. I'll go along with Blake. ¶I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of six thousand years dazzling around thy skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold. I know the what myself, for my creator and redeemer now. ¶Here we take a play and try to follow me closely with this play. I tell you, it is true. Judge not the play until the play is done. The last act crowns the play. ¶The last act we call Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the very center, the way in Judaism, the way out of bondage into liberty.

¶Now think of a play in this form: think of a vast place, six thousand years. The whole thing is scattered. And you think it must begin at one point and come to an end in one linear motion. But think of the entire play as taking place. ¶Think of it as something that is taking place absolutely and continuously. a play without reference to duration, to repetition, to position in time; just think of it: it's taking place and in the end, when you're crowned, having gone through all the parts you played every part, then this scattered place in time, portions of it are brought into one wonderful state — a portion in Genesis, pardon me, that took place if you read the play chronologically, thousands of years ago, and two angels came to the house of Lot, and Lot received them into his house, and then the men on the outside knocked on the door and demanded the one who was on the inside, the stranger.

Lot pleaded with them not to take the man, but he had two virgin daughters: take them instead, but not the stranger in my house. They demanded the stranger in the house, not knowing the stranger was a messenger from God; and a messenger from God is God. I who am sent. I am one with the sender: if you see me, the sent, you see the one who sent me. And he was sent by God the Father with the power and the wisdom to do anything on earth; and so they insisted on the man, not knowing who he was. And the man took Lot. By the way, the word Lot means to veil, to conceal, to wrap.

So he took Lot by the neck and pulled him into the house and closed the door, then blinded all those who saw him. So they could not find the door. It is telling you that Lot is not revealing; he is concealing a great secret. The word Lot means to veil, to cover, to conceal a great secret. ¶So behind the story, there is a secret. On the outside, the men are seeking a man rather than a woman. It is telling you they are homosexual. That's what the story is telling you. It is the story of Sodom. And then comes the power from within. And he blessed the city. And brought down fire and brimstone. And destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.

We have the word today Sodom as Sodom. Which is simply homosexuality. Here the whole thing was destroyed because they insisted on the stranger not knowing the stranger was the one sent from God. That is a foreshadowing, just a shadow of things to come, when you come to the end. Here is a story told thousands of years before, it's linked to a a story told thousands of years later, and then linked to a story told another thousand years. Here we take this story and prior to that which is the 19th chapter of Genesis I've just quoted, we go back and we take the story of Abraham, and he was sitting in the tent, the door of the tent when suddenly three men appear before him.

He didn't see them approaching; he suddenly appeared and announced the birth of a son. He couldn't believe it. He was too old, and Sarah was too old. Here was the announcement. You take that story, you take the story of the homosexuality, then we jump one thousand years into the story told in Samuel. And the story of Samuel. Here is a lad who refused to wear the armament of men. They gave him the sword, the shield, everything. He said, I cannot wear these. And he went unarmed, only armed with the grace of God, a youth, a young lad. His name was David. He took five stones and went forward to meet the giant who would destroy if he could destroy Israel.

And when he saw the youth, he left, this ridiculous little thing coming towards me, and David said to him, this day the Lord of Israel, who goes with me, will deliver you into my hand, and I will sever your head and feed your carcass to the fowls of the air, and that day one stone went through the quarry and he fell. He had no sword of his own, so he took the sword from Goliath and severed his head, and then threw the garment to the fowls of the air, then brought the head into the presence of the king who had promised to set his father free if he destroyed the enemy of Israel. For anyone who destroyed the enemy of Israel, his father would be set free.

Now you take these stories.

Now we go into the New Testament, which is another jump of a thousand years. What think ye of the Christ? Whose son is he? And they answered the son, son of David. He said, how then did David in the Spirit call him my Lord? If David in the Spirit called him my Lord, How can he be David's son? And they asked him no more. We take these stories spread over thousands of years, and in one single moment they all gather together into an entire new pattern which leads man from this misery, from this slavery into liberty, into freedom. I do not know of anyone, I haven't read it any place other than where I have told it in my book, where they gathered it together, it comes in the twinkle of an eye so suddenly.

As I have told you things of old, things that no one said before, and then I spoke and it came to pass. Has told us in the 48th of Isaiah: suddenly all that I told you in the past I now suddenly speak it, and it comes to pass. He gathers all these things together. How do you take? Here is the promise: I will give you a son in spite of your age; you are a hundred and she is beyond the time of the bearing of a child. And here comes Lot, the nephew of Abraham. He entertains the angel of the Lord, and homosexuals want the angel. That they saw it was a man. They do not wish his virgin daughters; they want the man, not knowing he has the power and the authority of God.

For he is sent by God, and the sender and the saint are one. He pulls Lot. It means they concealed the veil, the hidden, the secret, into the house. Then he blinds them so they could not find the door. And he calls them brimstone and destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. These are widely separated in time. Another thousand years and we find David destroying Destroying the enemy of Israel. Here is the head. Severed from the body. The body is thrown to the fowl. And here is one that now the Lord says, You are my son. Today I have begotten thee. We jump into the story of the Lord. For Jesus is called the Lord. David calls him my Lord.

which means my father when it happens to you and it was going to happen to you not one person in the world can fail or as we are told in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy the 8th verse when the Lord separated the peoples of the earth he He set bounds to the people according to the number of the sons of God.

This whole drama is a transformation, a complete transformation of the son into the father. That's the mystery of the entire story. God and God alone plays all the parts. There's nothing but God playing all the parts. and all the phrases all the appearances such as Stanley such as Nan such as anyone in this room tonight no matter who you are that is the phrase called the son of God but the one playing it is God the Father when he brings you to the inn this thing closes in upon you and forms an entirely new story which you experience revealing you as God the Father for the play is lasting you cannot tell it and you wonder how long oh Lord how long because the whole thing seems to be a repetition over and over and over again there isn't one vile crime in the world that is not openly described in the Bible do you think crimes are today read the Bible carefully. There isn't one that is not described in the Bible. And described in the nth degree.

When you come to the end and you've prayed all the parts, then you are crowned with God himself. Now this is how it happened. Who would have thought that a the La Stoli told, this is 1971, this is the 20th century, who would have told the La Stoli told? Two thousand years BC, and one told a thousand years BC, and one told the first century AD, is contemporary with the 20th century. the whole vast six thousand years which men could not understand suddenly portions of it come together like a magnet and forms an entirely new story I knew the individual experiencing and what do you experience? something the one he said you are my son John, the day of the gospel, stands before you.

Prior to him was the homosexual by one thousand years. And there are two next to you. And they're looking at him concupiscently. It is not said of him, I have found in David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart who will do all my will he is the one he sent he is called the hidden one in the Old Testament a way back he is the secret now a secret or a mystery in scripture is not a matter to be kept secret but a revealed truth that is mysterious in character he calls him in who calls him in the one who was saved here he stands before you and two homosexuals stand next to you and they're looking at him and you know they're looking at your son concupiscently and you warn these two homosexuals of his victory and before you on a table is a head, an enormous head, severed from the the body and there is the head of Goliath.

And you're living in the 20th century. And here is the head of Goliath. Here is David. And here are the two homosexuals from the play of Lot. There is a play completely fragmented taking place forever and forever. A thing to be done absolutely and continuously without reference to duration, to repetition or to position in time. for some time with reference to past time so you take all that is seemingly past because you read it and having read it it seems to you having read it it is past so suddenly it becomes contemporary and the whole thing is now taking place now and you are the father of this lad the two homosexuals are looking at him concupiscently you warn them he never lost a battle and never will.

For he said when he went into battle, I go in the name of the Lord God of Israel. And this day he will deliver you into my hand and I will sever your head and feed your body to the fowl. That day he severed his head. The whole thing actually unfolds before you. And this whole drama then reveals to you who you are. you are God the Father the transition took place that was God's promise to his son you will go into hell and this world is hell there is no other hell every vice possible for man to experience is clearly and openly described in scripture read tomorrow morning's headlines or anything nothing transcends what is in scripture As to violence.

You have played it. You are playing it. And you will play. If you have it. Then comes the end. And the end. Is the crown of the play. So judge not the play. Until the play is done. The last act. Crowns the play. The last act. Is the story of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the pattern man he is the way in Judaism that leads Judah which means the world from slavery into liberty from bondage into freedom from this world of Egypt into heaven so the whole drama is taking place in us my dears How near you are to this eruption, I do not know. You're told no one knows but the Father. For here, as the part that you're playing, you are the Son.

Not one child could be born in this world unless occupied by a Son of God. He accepts the bounds to the people according to the number of the Sons of God. so today they're trying to stop the population explosion oh they're quiet maybe they think they will stop it but not one child can be born who is not actually a garment worn by a son of God it takes all the sons to form the Lord so when you awaken from your present state as son of God into God the Father Father, you contain all, and you will not rest until everyone is brought back. Everyone must come back, but everyone must have the experience of wearing a garment called a son of man.

So he scattered the sons of men, and then placed bones to the people, according to the numbers of the sons of God. and when it happens the plague which man could not understand you're reading it now as secular history well the shadow is cast in this world and you do see the shadow of violence in the world all the crimes of the world for this thing was done before that the world was it's called the furnaces of affliction in scripture and when you have passed through them all then things that were scattered and widely separated in time like the story of Abraham and the story of not then the story of David then the story of Jesus or in one single moment how could you put it all together here I stood in this wonderful marvelous interior a sinful interior and here Here is a man recorded as having lived 1,000 1,000 years B.

C. and I've gone three ,000 years beyond him. And here are two homosexuals who went one ,000 before him. And they are present too. And here is the entire thing unfolding before me with the head right before me. And I know my son bought that head in. I turn to these. They're widely separated by one ,000 years. is. And I turn to them and I warn them that my son never has lost a victory and he never will. For he said that the Lord of Israel goes with him and the Lord of Israel said to him thou art my son and he is my son. He is telling me who I am. And I go with him and he cannot lose a battle.

And here the entire play unfolds before me. And God created the the two homosexuals. He created David. He created everything in that play. It's a play. He condemns none. He does not condemn the homosexuals. They're part of the play. He doesn't condemn anything in the world. The severed head. Here is the head. An enormous head, may I tell you. There's no head in the world. No matter how big it is in some museum, it doesn't compare to that head. It filled the entire table right straight from the neck that's all it was from the neck the body is severed and straight to the fowl and the whole thing is clear before me, clearer than you are now vividly clear, etched before my body and here I'm sitting, I'm looking at this fantastic unfolding of a play with portions of six thousand years gathered together into a contemporary state.

And it all makes sense. And when you come back to this level of consciousness, you read Scripture and your mind for one moment is just simply stunned. You read Genesis and there it is. You read First Samuel and there it is. You read Second Samuel and there it is. You read the Second Psalm and there it is. You go forward into Luke and there it is. And here, here, six thousand years gathered together into one contemporary moment and you are the central figure and you are God the Father. I am telling you what I have experienced. Here, God himself gave himself to us. Yet that gift is still to be experienced. It remains a gift, something that we do possess, but a goal to be attained.

It must still be experienced. When you experience it, then it's yours. And then at any moment after that, you can drop off this garment. And you can say with Paul, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. I have fought the good fight. And now the time of my departure has come. If I linger for a year or a few months, what does it matter? Only to tell and encourage everyone who hears it that you are the only one spoken of in Scripture. You are not the little thing that you think you are. You are and always have been the son of God destined to be God himself, that's the play, so as we are told by the poet, be patient, our playwright will show in some fifth act what this wild drama means.

He will show the meaning of it all. Well, I can tell you the meaning. The meaning is to reveal God. And when God is revealed in you, he is you. It's lifting you, the son of God, to the level of God the Father. That's the greatest of all mysteries. How can a son become his own father? And that's the mystery of the play. You become God the Father. You become the playwright. You become the author of it all. And in the end, everything is forgiven. So you played it all or you are playing it all or you will play it all. And in the end, you and I are one. One king, one Lord, one God and father of it all.

And may I tell you, one body. And oh, what a power. I can begin to describe to you the power that is yours. the wisdom that is yours blinded, yes, while you're here, completely shut out, but when it happened, you have a power beyond the wildest dream of man. Nuclear power is like little firecrackers for July the 12th. It means nothing. We speak of the exploding Sun and the power of a Son. It is as enough to the power that is yours. You are coming into that power with the wisdom to use it lovingly. May I tell you a beauty beyond the wildest dream. Power, but don't think for one moment it is violent. It will then be used lovingly.

When you actually wear, you will wear the human form divine, and that form is love, and I can't describe to anyone in mortal words what I mean by a form that is love, and yet it is a form, and it's love, and it's your form, and when you stand and look at David, David is the image of it only in you, and you are the ancient of days, you are the infinite love, the ancient of days, and David the sum total of all of your experiences is the image of you only he is you, he is eternally young, he is the result of all the pain and the suffering that you have had, so when someone tells you that you can do so and so and avoid this and avoid that.

All right. Play the part beautifully. Take the law and use it wonderfully well. Use it. But may I tell you, you will not avoid the essential part for joy and woe are woven fine. A garment for the soul divine.

Now a few of you are having some strange, interesting, mystical experiences. I'll go along with Blake because I too have gone through the world of which he speaks. I travel through a land of men, a land of men and women too, and heard and saw such dreadful things as cold earth wanderers never knew. For there the babe is born in joy, it was begotten in dire role. Just as we reap in joy the fruit which we in strange ways did sell. Now he tells us in that fourth verse of his wonderful poem, The Mental Traveler, and he mentions the exact parts of the body that really are nailed to this cross. He said he pierced.

First of all, the child is pierced upon a rock. His hands and feet, his head, a crumb of iron thorn that cut his side out, or that cut the side that he may feel both cold and heat. It is your head, your hands, your feet and your side, but he's telling it poetically, but he mentions the identical part where you are actually nailed and paired to this garment of flesh, but he told it in his own wonderful beautiful use of English. I know from my own experience that's exactly how it happens. I pass through these worlds night after night and I see exactly what he's describing, and some of you are passing through these states now, and you are scaring to death those who love you and think that something is wrong with you.

May I tell you, not a thing is wrong with you. You are near the end, that's why you are passing through them. So let no one stop. First of all, they couldn't stop you anyway. You couldn't be stopped now. It's too late, and who would want to stop it when you're near the end to receive the crown. So you fought the good fight and you finished the race and you kept the faith, and now there's made up for you the crown of righteousness. Let no one now bother me, for I bear on my body the mark of Jesus. If the stigmata, and yet not as the world calls it. ¶You bear all the marks, and all the marks are these experiences as recorded in Scripture.

And so here are the events. The very first one takes the story of Abraham. Three men appear suddenly, and they come from nowhere to announce the birth of a child. That's Abraham. It starts that way right after the resurrection. They are awakened within the tomb. And then three men, after you come out of it, and you're born from above, three men appear, and you don't see them coming. They appear suddenly. They come to witness the birth of that which they had foretold. Is anything too hard for God? So here is a child you said you could not have, but there he is, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and you call him Isaac, as I told you you would call him.

And Isaac means he laughed, and he does. to pick him up and he burst into the most heavenly smile he left that's told in Genesis and here is the year 1959 that's a long time 2000 BC it's 4000 years that it happens and then comes my son as I told him you are my son but I didn't know I was his father until God gave me himself I went through hell then came that moment in time that he kept his promise and his promise is he gives himself to us and yet the gift is still to be realized in experience then comes the experience and you realize it it remains the gift as a goal to be attained until the experience and then you realize it and here 1000 BC those words were said I say unto you, you are my son who is saying that?

the Lord is saying it and he stands before you and reveals you as the Lord and then you turn to scripture the first century what think ye of the Christ whose son is he? Son of David. How then does David in the spirit call him my Lord? If David calls him my Lord, how can he be David's son? And here the whole thing stands before you, then you know who you are. To whom did he say that? He said that to the Christ who is called the Lord. And only David can reveal him. No one else can reveal him. and so David revealed him as the Lord so I tell you Shakespeare though the greatest of all poets in the English town was also the man of vision with the capacity to write such beauty and he told it in the play so you and I go and we are amused as you like it it's a very amusing play if you've ever seen it I love it Last time I saw it was in Central Park in New York City.

In the summer they have these open air theaters. And we saw as you like it. And here he throws these words upon the wind. And who really got it? All the world, all the world is a stage. No men and women, merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. and one man in his time played many parts. Then he mentioned the seven parts from the cradle to the grave. But I explained it for you tonight. It takes in a far greater time than the span between the cradle and the grave. ¶It takes in the 6 ,000 years and the play is all told in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is an adumbration, a foreshadowing that no one could understand.

And Christianity is simply the way within Judaism. It was before the plague. That was the purpose of the plague. It had a purpose. The purpose comes first. Then the plague to unfold the purpose. So Christianity is the purpose buried in Judaism, which is the plague. And when it unfolded, they would not believe that was the meaning of the play. So they continued to observe the outer ceremonies, which is simply the play. But as it erupts and unfolds within us, we see all these parts, widely separated in time, pull into a single act. And here you see all these characters, and they're still alive. These are the eternal states of consciousness. business. David is forever and forever and forever.

He is forever the prince because you are the king. And if you are the father of David and you are king, he has to be a prince. I'll make him prince forever, so told in scripture. He is eternally the prince, awaiting the father who is king to recognize him and then memory returns. In fact, now it is given, for prior to that you were the son of God and now you are God himself. That is the sacrifice. So God gives himself to us. Yet the gift remains a gift until experience. When it is experienced, we become possessors of the gift, and the gift is God. You are God himself. So I know from my own experience that I experience it as I my ordered race of life.

And I can say to the whole vast world that all of us, all the inhabitants of earth, we have one religion, the religion of Jesus. And that is the eternal everlasting gospel. It is no other. It is the heart, the purpose of Judaism. Judaism is the foundation stone. That's the play. But before the play was written, there was a purpose behind the play. And the purpose was concealed. It was hidden. And in the end, the purpose unfolds in a way that no one, knowing only the play, could ever have seen it. It comes at the end. So judge not the play until the play is done. the last act crowns the play and that last act is Jesus Christ and you are the Lord Jesus Christ who is God himself now let us go into the silence.

Thank you. Good. Good. Do you have any questions, please? yes Frank the five stones five in scripture means grace and grace comes through Jesus Christ grace and truth came through Jesus Christ and grace is the gift of God unmerited, unearned. There's not a thing that the son did to merit being the father. It was God the father's desire to raise his son to the level of himself. It only means it doesn't mean a little stone. That's all symbolism. He was armed only with grace. That is sufficient for you as we are told in scripture. And when the thorn in his side screamed out for correction, three times he appealed to God to remove the thorn, and three times the Lord said to him, My grace is sufficient for him for my power is made perfect in witness.

So your weakness could be anything. It could be bankruptcy, it could be a physical pain, it could be anything whatever. Is human is weak. For we are all weak in these garments, but my grace is sufficient for go on. Only with my grace you have no sword. So you take the sword from the one that you by grace brought down, and then you sell his head for his own sword. So that five simply means great, and great is God's gift of himself to man. And if he gives me himself and I face the world as an opponent, they would vanish if I go armed with the grace of God. Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord.

So if I am armed with the grace of God, what does it matter? What opponents will say? Any other questions? They're standing. I follow the story from Lot and Paul. I don't quite understand what part of Abraham contributed. Was there some vision, some element present? Yes. Abraham? In Abraham's vision, three men suddenly appeared while he sat in the door of the tent in the heat of the day. He didn't recognize them as messengers of the Lord and he didn't recognize that one was the Lord. And when he questioned at moments that he, an old man, could have a child, they say to him, is anything too hard for the Lord? And he admitted, no, there was not.

So he believed that nothing was too hard for the Lord in spite of the fact he was already a hundred years old and Sarah 90. So when the child is born, three men appear. In his case there were three. In Lot's case, he offered his two daughters. Therefore, in offering two virgin daughters, he was offering to two men. And there were two homosexuals who appeared in the drama. So here the child appeared first. And that was the story of Abraham because three brothers And these three brothers simply to deny that you, Vaughan, could have the child. But the third one spoke and lifted the child and he embraced it and it smiled in his face.

It was Isaac, the laughing one.