—Introduction to a Class on Ezekiel. DO 2319 2/85

1. The Bible originally, of course‚ was not divided into chapters or verses. In fact, in the original manuscripts or scrolls, paper was so precious & space was so precious that they didn't even divide the words, there were not even spaces between the words, no punctuation, it just all ran together. But I presume if you'd run all your English together you'd probably still be able to read it pretty well, especially if you were as familiar with the Scripture as the Scribes & the Pharisees. Do you know why they got named Scribes? (Techi: Because they wrote it down.) They wrote & copied the Scriptures.

2. It was a very important, highly-technical task & they were checked & checked & rechecked by others to make sure they got every jot & tittle! Do you know where that expression comes from, "jot & tittle"? (Fam: Isn't it part of the Hebrew alphabet?)—Exactly! You really remember some things we gave you in those classes down in Malta!—Or maybe you knew that already. (Fam: No, we learned it from you.) Didn't you ever learn anything else before I came along?—Ha! Jot comes from the Hebrew "Jod," which is nothing but a little tiny apostrophe, but it's actually a Hebrew letter sort of like a "Y." And the tittle comes from the next smallest Hebrew character, very very small, & I don't have time to go into that or I'll be giving you a whole lesson in Hebrew. But they were very careful how they copied the Scriptures, although they didn't give it much space.

3. What Book are we studying? (Fam: Ezekiel.) And Ezekiel's in what part of the Bible? (Fam: The Old Testament.) And in what group of Old Testament Books? (Fam: Major Prophets.)—Right! So all of this part of the Bible was written originally in what language? (Fam: Hebrew.) And therefore it was written how?—Left to right‚ right to left‚ up & down, down & up or how? You know, Chinese was originally written in columns. The new Chinese‚ they're kind of getting Westernised & write in lines from left to right like English‚ but originally Chinese was written in columns. Hebrew, Arabic, in fact most of the old Oriental languages, if they put'm in lines they're written in what direction? (Fam: Right to left.)

4. So they read Hebrew from right to left, & the characters, of course, are very different from any English characters. I don't think you'll find any of the Hebrew characters that even slightly resemble the English characters. How many letters do you have in your alphabet? (Fam: 26.) Do you know how many letters there are in the Hebrew alphabet? (Fam: 22.)—Right, 4 less. Do you know why? (Fam: The vowels.)—Exactly, there are no vowels in Hebrew, they are all consonants. The only way you know how to pronounce the words & the syllables is that you just know'm. You know after each type of Hebrew consonant what vowel sound is supposed to come next.

5. Well, in teaching little ones to read Hebrew it became somewhat difficult for them to remember all the various vowel sounds which were supposed to follow each of these consonants, so they developed a system of little dots which they place under the Hebrew consonant to indicate what the vowel sound is going to be following it. So they have developed vowel signs in modern Hebrew, which are used today. They're either one little dot or two little dots side by side, or three little dots, two above & one below indicating the various vowel sounds. And you can imagine, with Hebrew as complicated as it is & trying to save space, it was good they didn't have any vowel sounds because they really did try to save space & it all had to be copied by hand.

6. There was no such thing as printing‚ every copy of the Bible had to be completely copied by somebody, or several somebodies, hand–written by hand! Now how would you like the job of having to copy the whole Bible in a kind of printing? It would even be hard to do in English, wouldn't it? So that was a fulltime job & that's how the Scribes made their living. Bibles were very very expensive & only the rich could afford them. The only access the poor had to the Scriptures at all was at the synagogue, the Jewish place of worship. They usually had a stand there with scrolls on it chained to a pillar of the synagogue so that nobody could steal it, & where the poor could come & read. But usually there was someone there to read the Scriptures at certain times every day, because many of the people were so illiterate they couldn't even read. So a reader would be there just to read Scriptures daily, part of the morning & afternoon, & anybody could volunteer to read who could read.

7. This shows that Jesus had a fairly good education, because you recall on one instance that He stood up in the synagogue & read the Scriptures to them! This was not an unusual thing to happen at all, because frequently people who could read & who were well-educated would volunteer, or even as a guest be invited to read the Scriptures, it was sort of an honour. So Jesus stood up & read the Scriptures, which was a prophecy about Himself. Does anybody remember what Scripture it was? (Fam: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.") And what Book are you reading from? (Fam: Luke.) (Luk. 4:18,19) But Jesus was not reading Luke! (Fam: It's from Isaiah.) (Isa. 61:1,2) Yes, He was reading Isaiah & this is a direct quote more or less from Isaiah in the New Testament story where it's telling how Jesus read that Scripture in the synagogue. And then what did He say? (Fam: "And He began to say unto them, `This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.'"—Luk.4:21.)

8. They didn't really have preachers or ministers as we think of them today, the minister was the head of the synagogue, usually some Rabbi. And they didn't just have one Rabbi to each synagogue, they had several. The Rabbis were teachers, lawyers & doctors, & they still are to this day. They're the most highly–educated men in the World! I don't know of any other ministers or preachers or priests of any religion who receive as much education‚ because a Rabbi has to be not only a religious teacher to his people, but he has to also be a lawyer of the law to settle legal matters, & he also is their doctor, believe it or not. So modern Rabbis today have degrees in at least those three fields, graduate degrees in law, medicine & religion. So they're very smart people. Leave it to the Devil to have the smartest when it comes to education. That was Man's first great temptation. So they are very very smart people. The trouble is, they're not smart enough! You with Jesus & with your knowledge of Christ are far smarter than they are!

9. But the people practically worshipped them, would do anything they said & paid heavy taxes to them!—Like people today worship scientists. Science today is the sacred cow of this World‚ the religion of this World in a sense. If there's anybody on Earth in the form of men that people worship more than any others, it is not their priests nor their ministers nor their preachers, not even their Rabbis. Today's religion is Materialism, & it is the doctors & the scientists that people today worship! They take their word as the gospel truth, in fact more than they take the Gospel Truth! Their word is law as far as people today are concerned. They'll believe anything the scientists or the doctors tell them, & they will do anything the scientists or doctors tell them to do.

10. The scientists are the gods of this World today‚ along with all the material things that they create in the way of images for them to worship & technical contraptions of various kinds‚ automobiles, television & all the rest. We use all these things for some good purposes‚ but the World worships them above anything, without even worshipping God at all.—Or even if they do claim to worship God, they worship these things more. Thank God you & I love the Lord above all, we worship God most of all. We simply use these things as tools & that keeps them under subjection, we don't fall down & worship them.

11. So the Scribes mostly copied the Scriptures, but the Scribes who wrote the originals were like Mama here! Baruch was a Scribe for Jeremiah. They had secretaries in those days who were good writers. And I don't know whether the Prophets prophesied slowly or the secretaries wrote quickly, but between the two of them the Scribes seemed to do a pretty good job of copying down what the Prophets were prophesying. Imagine how difficult all that was!—Writing it in Hebrew besides & trying to write real small to save space too, & writing from right to left, & only 22 letters & no vowels. It's a tough‚ technical job!

12. So being a Scribe was a full–time job & they got paid for it by selling the copies of these books. Hardly anybody had a whole Bible, there was no such thing, not even a whole Old Testament. Of course, the New Testament wasn't even written yet, but nobody even had a whole Old Testament. They were considered rich if a private individual even owned one book, just one book! Of course most of them—the rich who had them at all—preferred the Devotional & Poetic Books for devotional readings & singing etc. But hardly anyone had complete Old Testaments unless they were very very rich.

13. So it was a very technical job, & these Scribes & Pharisees & Rabbis & Chief Priests were very very well-educated men of letters & degrees & knowledge in every kind of professional field, law, medicine, religion etc. They were the gods of the people in those days, they were worshipped by the Jews & paid well for it too, let me tell you! So how do you think they felt when Jesus called all of them with their big education & degrees etc., "Ye blind leaders of the blind!" & a few other cracks He made about them?—Mat.15:14. Next time you read the New Testament story & some of those cracks Jesus made to the Scribes & the Pharisees, you can understand why they became so furious they wanted to kill Him! He was debunking their superiority! He was completely jerking the rug out from under them to where they no longer could feel so superior. He was exposing them to the people, how all that education didn't mean a thing, not a thing! He told them that without love it was nothing. Well, that's another story. We were going to start reading right away, but I had to tell you about what you're reading!

PROPHECY, POEMS & INTERPRETATION!

14. And this Book, Ezekiel‚ was written by whom? (Fam: Ezekiel.) Well, we say as a common expression, "Written by so-&–so," but actually we don't even know if Ezekiel could write! He probably could, but what do we really mean when we say it was written by Ezekiel? I don't think I ever wrote any of my prophecies at all, none of them, ever!—I think there's only one that I ever remember actually writing, a very short thing, & I got that in what was like spirit-writing. I think it was about J. Edgar Hoover, some little tiny thing that had a strange word in it that I didn't understand, somebody had to write in and tell me what it was later. Remember? (Fam: It was in "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.") (No.162) Well, that's the only one I ever wrote, & it was like my hand was propelled just like in spirit–writing!—Except that spirits can even pick up a pencil & write without a hand. That must have been why the Lord did it that way, to show how He could do that‚ He just took my hand and wrote on the piece of paper. Otherwise I never wrote any of those prophecies. Who do you suppose wrote'm? (Fam: The Lord.)

15. (Maria: You typed "Mountin' Maid" that time!)—Yes, a poem! (No.240)—While Mama was busy talking to somebody or doing something else. I was in a hurry & it was flowing & I didn't want to lose it‚ so I quick sat down at the typewriter. When we started off it was originally all in prose. Prose is just sort of writing‚ you know, not poetry, it doesn't rhyme. Nowadays there are so few real poets in the World that they've developed a new kind of so-called poetry that is just jargon & disjointed & irregular lined, no meter, no rhyme. It's like their ugly art, it doesn't even make sense! But real genuine poetry either has meter or it has rhyme. Do you know what meter is? Meter is rhythm: Da, da-da, da-da‚ da-da! Da-da, da-da‚ da-da, da-da! Da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da! Da-da, da-da, da-da! Like that, see? It has rhythm! All the songs you sing have to have some kind of rhythm to them or you can't very well sing them. I've noticed a few of our musicians don't necessarily stick to the rhythm all the time, but most genuine poetry & songs too have a rhythm, or a beat as you call it, & every line, or every other line usually‚ has a word at the end that rhymes.

16. And believe it or not, these beautiful Poetic Books in the Bible, in the original language‚ had both meter & rhyme! They were beautifully translated in our version into English, but can you imagine how difficult it would be to try to translate them into English meter & English rhyme?—Almost impossible! I admire the translators we have had who have translated some of my poetry—our poetry, I give a few other people credit for it, it wasn't really mine—in order to give it both meter, rhythm, beat & rhyme & still make it mean the same thing. I told them a long time ago in one of the old Letters that the translators had to be just as inspired as I was to translate that sort of thing! To translate poetry it takes a genius—a genius or a genie! Sort of like the genies that come out of the bottles, you know? In other words, it takes a spirit, it takes a real genius of some kind to translate poetry. So it was difficult, but I never wrote any of it except that one time.

17. I was impatient & sat down at the typewriter & started finishing what I was saying about the "Mountin' Maid." We'd been on the subject of "Revolutionary Women" & that sort of thing, & all of a sudden it just began to flow out in meter & rhyme—on the typewriter, of all things!—Me, I was typing! (Fam: Wow!) It wasn't hard, just be amazed at how God can work & even the Spirit can flow through your own fingers, typing in meter & in rhyme! I just went right on, I hardly got stuck on a single line. It just came to me, just like I was listening to dictation & I was just typing what somebody was dictating.

18. That's what you have to do in the way of prophecy or tongues or interpretation or any of those things, you have to have faith! You don't wait till you get the whole thing, you just type each word as it comes. It sort of came in lines & I just typed each line as it came. When I got to the end of the first line, the second line would come & I'd type that line. I typed it just about as fast as I usually type, & I used to be a pretty good typist. (Maria: Even more amazing was the fact that it followed the prose, it followed the text!)—Yes! I sat down to type the thing‚ & of all the funny things‚ it came in rhyme instead of in prose‚ as the original had been in prose. So that was a real miracle & those are one or two or three of the only times I ever actually typed the material myself.

19. So when we say Ezekiel wrote this Book, it doesn't necessarily mean that he himself had to write it by hand. A man as important as he was & as well-educated as some of these men were, probably had helpers like I have here, secretaries & household staff & people that took care of them while they'd tend to the Word of God. So things were not necessarily that much different in those days from what they are now.—Except now we have speedwriting, shorthand, typewriters, & better yet, we've got tape recorders that can take it as fast as you can give it!

MARIA THE SCRIBE!

20. Thank the Lord‚ I'll never forget when we first began using tape recorders down in Tenerife. Up to that time, for the first five years of the Family everything that I got, Maria both wrote down first in shorthand & then transcribed on the typewriter herself. The first five years of Letters were all written in shorthand & on the typewriter by this little girl right here! The Family was built on those first five years of Letters!—Think of that!—From 1970 to 1975. And only then, after we'd been in Tenerife about a year or so, did she finally break down & yield to the technical advantages of modern science & eased up a little bit & could relax a little bit more while she recorded it with the tape recorder. But even then she still transcribed all of those on the typewriter, she'd take the tape afterwards & transcribe it.

21. Many times I would be either asleep or half-asleep & didn't even know what was going on! You know, the Bible says you've got to watch out for these "wizards that peep & mutter"!—Isa.8:19. I'm one of those wizards that peep & mutter! Well, not the way the Bible is talking about, not that kind of wizard either. But I would be speaking so low she was afraid it was too low for the tape recorder to even pick it up, so sometimes she'd hold the tape recorder almost right against my mouth. Other times she'd do as she does even today. Sometimes I might be sitting on the throne reading the paper & get something & I'll be talking to her in the next room & there's no tape recorder right there & she can't come rushing in in time to pick it up, so she just picks up the tape recorder & she repeats it on the tape recorder.

22. So she's still my scribe! Even though she's using tape recorders now, she still takes it down that way, & it's a lot easier than writing in shorthand. As I told you, she used to even write in the dark. She learned to space it in her notebook so she wouldn't write one line over the other. Then she could read it afterwards, imagine! (Maria: It took a lot of help from the Lord!) Oh, I believe she definitely has the gift of interpretation‚ really, because a lot of that stuff was very difficult to transcribe or even to understand or interpret. I don't know how much, we'll find out in the days to come, that maybe Maria's going to get more credit for it than I do‚ through her interpretation. Now some of you are sitting there wondering, "I wonder how much of this stuff Maria herself wrote!" Well, you'll never know till you get to Heaven!

23. So don't belittle or minimise her role & her ministry, it's just as important as mine! As the Lord brings out, the Interpreter is just as important as the Prophet. The gift of interpretation is equal to that of prophecy, so you ought to start giving Maria just as much credit as you've been giving me, because she had to interpret all that.—Not only that, she had to write it down in shorthand‚ interpret her notes‚ & on top of that transcribe it. We didn't even start using a secretary for transcribing the original tapes until Tenerife. That was when we sent tapes to Sal for the first time, because it got so abundant & so prolific & there was so much that it was just too much for poor Mama to have to transcribe it all! But there were still things that she wouldn't trust anybody else to transcribe, she'd sit down at the typewriter & do it herself. And there were some things that she still did in shorthand & she still does to this day. Sometimes she can't even rely on the tape recorder, it may stick or stop or something & she doesn't take a chance, she wants to make sure she gets it, so she grabs that little notebook of hers! You've seen those little notebooks of hers, she starts scribbling away!—Faithful!

24. Lift it up, Mama! I don't think you'll ever see her anywhere without that little notebook! We used to have stacks & stacks & stacks & piles & piles of them‚ & I think we still have some that have never even been transcribed yet. So don't ever worry about running out of the Word! You know what the Lord said in "The Birthday Warning"! (See #215) Anybody that thinks you're ever going to run out of the Word just because I'm gone, or whether I'm gone or not‚ wherever, is mistaken! Well‚ I hope to be able to stick around & help you in the Spirit, but even after I'm gone in the physical‚ in the body, you're going to have oodles of leftover Word even if you don't get anything new! The Word of God is always good & most of it is just as good today as it was then, advice & counsel & teaching etc., & all kinds of little old goldies & nuggets that you'll be able to enjoy long after I'm gone, & Mama & Sally will still have plenty to do!—And you'll still have plenty to do helping her.

25. We'll still need everything & everybody just like we do now, there will be no difference, no change, you'll hardly even know I'm gone! About the only ones that will maybe miss me are you folks right here in this house, you'll know I'm not here.

26. Sometimes I almost wish I'd let it stand that way when Time magazine published that article saying I was dead! That guy up in Amsterdam was going around circulating those little tracts that were supposed to be written by me, my confession of being a false prophet & supposedly written just before my death & that I had died. Well, it might have been better for security if I had let the World continue to believe that I was dead, but for the sake of the Family we had to refute it. (See #593) We were still in a critical growth period when people needed to know I was still alive & kicking & still in operation so they wouldn't get discouraged & quit!

27. My goodness, I opened my Bible to the Chapter & my intentions were very good! But I'm always having to explain things & tell you things‚ so I started out just by making sure you know what this Book is all about & how it's constructed! But anyhow, Ezekiel probably dictated to his Scribe just like Jeremiah dictated to his Scribe, Baruch. There are a few other places where it mentions Scribes, that they were writing down what the Prophets had to say.

28. When I'm speaking in prophecy‚ that's where the Spirit comes through & directly controls my mouth, my brain, my tongue, everything! It's even happened in my sleep! I woke up the next morning & didn't even know I'd gotten a thing! So I told you, I'm nothing but a tape recorder. The Lord just took my tongue & my mouth & wiggled it & made me talk in my sleep & Maria wrote it all down, & if she hadn't told me the next morning I wouldn't have known anything even happened! When I'm alive & well & conscious & awake as I am now, I have on occasion gotten prophecies etc., like those poems where I was not asleep, but the lines just came to me just like I was listening or inside my head, & I just wrote'm‚ or Maria usually wrote'm down. Only two or three times I wrote'm myself. I would just dictate to Mama & she either wrote it down in shorthand or she recorded it on a tape recorder‚ a very faithful Scribe!

DAD'S SPEAKING EXPERIENCES!

29. Without Maria you'd have had nothing!—Because all my life I hated to write letters, & I never wrote anything except what I was required to in school, & that was the most difficult thing there was for me to do when they required those essay answers. I almost hated teachers who insisted on essay answers, "Write a paragraph on this subject" or "Write one page on such-&-such a subject."—Ugh! If you knew how I had to agonise over trying to write one paragraph! I know you don't believe it, but it's the truth! I had to agonise over trying to write one paragraph, much less one page!—Terrible!

30. When I was in high school, every month in English you were supposed to read a book, & at the end of every month before report card time you were supposed to hand in a book report. Reading was easy for me‚ I was a good reader.—Not a fast reader, I was very slow‚ but I was a very thorough reader. That's why I remember almost everything I've ever read‚ including figures & whatnot.—Especially you girls' figures! Ahem! But I remember what I read very well‚ & even when Peter sometimes forgets the figures, I remember them, because I read slowly & thoroughly & I absorb it. I can give you stats & dates & lots of things from the past that you've heard me teach & it just comes off the top of my head. So that's not hard for me.

31. Reading the book was simple, easy, I read lots of books, I read more than they required! I was reading books all the time besides school work, because I loved to read. But then to have to write a report on that book, that was agony! You just can't imagine! It just shows you what a miracle God did! Before I was filled with the Holy Spirit it was even hard for me to talk, believe it or not! I was a very shy, extremely quiet little boy until I was 19 years of age! I never made a speech, I never made a talk, I hardly said a word—I know that's hard for you to believe now—until the Holy Spirit filled me when I was 19. After that I found I was able to use all that knowledge I'd already stored up—Bible knowledge & everything else—when they made me then the leader of the Young People's group.

32. My Mother, God bless her‚ knew how shy I was & how difficult it was for me to speak, & I had never spoken publicly at all except to recite poetry.—Well, I'd sung a little bit, not much. I had a few favourite poems as a little boy about David's age that my Mother would get me to stand up & recite because it was something cute or funny or had to do with the theme of Missions or something.

33. I told you about that first poem I quoted before the Ladies' Missionary Society at that little church outside of Washington D.C. How many of you remember that one? The kids remember it at least. Well, my Mother taught me this little poem, & because I was little & cute like our kids, that was a little extra added attraction & entertainment for the old Ladies' Missionary Society. I don't know why they were nearly all old ladies, but anyway‚ she had me get up & recite this little poem, & it was a very cute little appropriate poem:

"Mary had a little lamb

With fleece as white as snow,

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to go.

I wish I had a little lamb

With fleece as white as Mary's,

I'd sell the wool & give the money

To the missionaries!"

—Not too good poetry, but it was my Mother's idea.

34. But instead of that, in the meantime my brother got ahold of me & taught me another version! And you can imagine my Mother's horror, chagrin, embarrassment & humiliation when I got up, the little angel, in the serious, sober Ladies' Missionary Society & said:

"Mary had a little lamb,

She put it on the shelf,

And every time it wagged its tail,

It spanked its little self!"

—What that brother of mine did, he was a rascal all his life! He didn't get straightened out till his old age. Now, thank the Lord, he loves me‚ loves us, loves you‚ loves the work we're doing & has nothing but praise for us.—Whereas in those years gone by when he was very Worldly & backslidden, he had nothing but criticism & ridicule for the work that my Mother & I were doing. But now he really thinks it's great! PTL! He even sent us $5 the other day! Bless his heart!

35. Here I am trying to help support him because he's old & poor & crippled, & he's beginning to learn how to give! How about that? He always was very generous, though, always giving too much of himself to this cause & that cause. He could never say no! In college they wanted him to be president of this & president of that, head of the dining room & head of this & head of that. He just finally had a nervous breakdown‚ he worked too hard. And all through life he could never say no to some guy who wanted to borrow money from him or some guy wanting him to do this or that, all these unpaid civic jobs like the head of the Historical Society, the head of the Centennial Celebration, blah blah, all these things that you only get kind of glory & credit for but no money. He never knew how to ask for money. How different his brother is!—Ha! I guess I've got more of the Jew in me than him! Well‚ I don't really sell anything exactly‚ but I am a salesman & I have sold you! I've sold you the Gospel, sold you the Lord, in a sense‚ & if you're going to be a real good teacher, preacher, litnesser, witness or whatever you're going to be, you've got to be a good salesman!

36. But I just couldn't even hardly say a word when I was young until after I was filled with the Spirit at 19! I could have been filled with the Spirit a lot younger, like you children, if I'd only really understood it or known it. I can't understand why my Mother didn't push it, but I guess I just wasn't ready & for some reason the Lord allowed it to be delayed until then. But even then, when I was supposed to make a talk to the Young People, I would diligently pore over my Bible & write down references & verses & make notes & I'd get up there with my nice little list of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6‚ 7, the hermeneutics, exegesis‚ homiletics, blah blah & whatnot! I didn't know those big words then, but that's what they call it in Bible College when you analyse a Scripture & you write down a talk from it & get your points lined up in a certain order, blah blah.

37. I think I only did that twice, because I discovered that when I got up to start talking I completely forgot to use my notes! I had gotten all those things in my head & I didn't need the notes any more! I just got up & spoke as the Spirit gave utterance, & oftentimes, something entirely different from what I had planned to say. The Lord had His way & said what He wanted to say. And from then on I never had any problem or lack of words or lack of something to talk about‚ even when I finally got to college & had to make speeches & things.

38. When I was in high school the head of the Social Sciences department always used to take me around to speak to the businessmen in the service clubs, Lions, Optimists & that sort of thing‚ because he considered me his best speaker! And even then I would take along a little piece of paper about as big as the pages in Maria's notebook, with a few little points. I long ago learned that I didn't have to write everything out, just a few points on a little piece of paper in case I forgot everything or got scared or got mike fright. But usually the piece of paper would wind up crushed in a little ball in my fist as I got to really talking to those guys on subjects I was interested in & really was trying to sell them on!

39. One of the subjects he always had me speak on was George Washington, of all things!—Ugh! But at that time I thought Washington was a great guy. He was quite an outstanding Jew, of course, & quite a genius to organise a whole country & fight a war on top of it & get the whole thing organised & on its feet, so he was quite a guy. And on or around Washington's birthday they always had speeches about him & blah blah, so I had to give a speech about Washington.

40. But my favourite subject was guess what? (Fam: Sex!)—Sex education! Well‚ I could speak from experience of how I would consider that it almost damaged me you might say spiritually or even psychologically, because I didn't know more about sex & didn't have greater freedom about sex. I had a guilt complex about sex because of all my masturbation etc., because the System & the churches teach it's wrong, blah blah. But that's so ridiculous‚ because it's so natural & it's perfectly normal! In other cultures they think nothing of it & they have no guilt complexes from this Judeo–Christian concept that virtually all sex is sinful & wicked & bad & therefore you shouldn't hardly practice any except to have children!

41. Well‚ I really preached on the subject of sex education in the high schools, & it was important! Good night, girls right in our school were getting pregnant almost every day! They knew very little about sex, but they knew that much. But there was not enough knowledge taught, in fact nothing was taught in high school on that in those days. You didn't get into subjects like that till you got to college, & by that time, most young people were already married & still knew very little about sex.

42. Well, thank God, God has made you & your body so that you don't have to know very much. As I've said, the first time Adam took a look at Eve he probably figured out by the reaction, ahem‚ & by the location what it was for & what he was supposed to do with it, even if God didn't tell him‚ which He probably did! Did you ever notice how it just happens to be in the right place & if you walk up to each other & hug each other, everything's conveniently located! You can hardly miss! And did you ever notice how a girl's legs are shaped that her little hole is almost sort of made into a funnel, so that if you get anywhere close it's bound to hit the bull's-eye? It's a fact!—A leg on either side & a tummy above & everything funnels down to that spot! So there's no problem of finding it, you can find it just by feeling & almost automatically hit the bull's-eye! God has made sex very simple, really.

43. But I was advocating that sex should be taught in high school, because young folks knew so little about it.—Except what they heard from their friends, & usually dirty-minded friends at that & perverted sex & all that sort of thing. So I was preaching even then that sex is a natural, normal, God-created function & activity etc. I was always bringing God in & my teacher didn't like that much because he was an atheistic Communist‚ but he let me get away with it because I was his best speaker.

44. What I'm saying is that after I was filled with the Spirit, the Lord helped me with speeches that were not even supposed to be religious speeches or in church, but it just came & I just socked it to'm! Those businessmen's meetings used to be some of the driest, deadest things, but they would practically shout & cheer & clap‚ because I was really sockin' it to'm & they knew I meant it! I was convincing them!

45. And it was very soon after that that they began having courses in sex education in California high schools, one of the first in the United States! So it did some good, I hope. I said sex should be accepted as a perfectly acceptable, natural, normal function of the human body & young people should not feel guilty about it, it shouldn't be degraded & debauched & demeaned as it is by the people who specialise in perversion & pornography & all the rest of it! I said, "The wrong people are teaching plenty about sex, the kids get it from every source, from books & magazines!" They didn't have much TV then & they couldn't do too much on radio, but there was plenty of stuff & pictures even in those days about sex, all from the wrong angle & with the wrong application, & all souped up with the idea it was evil to make it more attractive! Can you imagine?

46. See, if you convince wicked Man that sex is evil, he likes it all the more! He wants to indulge all the more & pervert it & use it wrongly. And of course, the Devil, by convincing people that it's wrong, even if it's not‚ makes them sin.—And that's what he wants them to do‚ he wants them to sin! And even if it is perfectly natural‚ normal & not a sin in any way, I mean normal sex, if the Devil can convince you that it is a sin, then it is a sin for you! Because, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin."—Rom. 14:23. Even if you're doing something right & that the Devil himself knows is right, if he can convince you that it's wrong‚ then you're sinning! He's a liar from the beginning!—Jn.8:44.

47. The Devil is a terrible liar & he even tries to convince people that the good they're doing sometimes is evil! Sometimes he's tried to discourage me. Our enemies talk about this & that & I think, "I wonder if we did the right thing, if our FFers really did the right thing?" The Devil tries to lie to you & put doubts in your mind about it. I'm sure you've all had it happen to you sometime. But then all I have to do is think of all the good that's been done & all the people who've been saved & all the folks who've heard the Gospel & the marvellous stories we read in our FSMs etc., the testimonies of the wonderful results, the good results, the good fruit! Then I'm able to tell the Devil, "You're a liar! There's no truth in what you're telling me at all! The fruit is too good!" There's been so much good done, & if any harm has been done at all, it has been almost insignificant, & only then because some people didn't do it right or didn't do it with the right spirit or motive or whatever. Your motive has a lot to do with it.

48. I didn't mean to get into all that, but I was explaining‚ as you can see, why I don't need notes!—Ha! I found that if I used notes I never got done! You know how I am about finishing what I started, so with the first two or three little talks I gave the Young People, even if I talked my allotted time & only covered one or two of the points on the paper, I was determined to finish, & then I'd always talk too long‚ just like I am now!—Ha! I even talk too long without notes, so why should I have notes to prolong it? I already talked too long!

49. Well, I'm determined to read the rest of this passage at least before we finish this class! Are you game? I don't know why I got into all that about the Bible & about the Scripture & about me, but I've always got to explain it all! I guess it's just the teacher in me. Teaching was my original gift & I just have to explain everything. If I'm afraid you don't understand some little fine point, I'll go ahead & give a whole lesson on that fine point & never get around to the main subject! I don't know whether that's an asset or a liability! (Fam: An asset!) I guess as a result I've covered a lot of subjects that you needed to know that I might not have otherwise.—While in the meantime I didn't cover the subject that I intended to cover!

—HAVE YOU

READ'M ALL?