David Berg
DO 1829Switzerland, 14/8/78
1. (AFTER A LESSON ON BURNING TRASH: ) YOU SAY, "YOU SURE MAKE A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL, LIKE IT'S A GREAT BIG THING ABOUT BURNING A LITTLE BIT OF TRASH!" Well, it is a great big thing & it's something that has to be done every day, & it can save you a lot of money & save a lot of heat & save things like energy—energy which the World is burning up so fast now that it can never be replaced, & will never be replaced because they're using what's probably the wrong kind of energy. (For you in the cold North!)
2. I DOUBT IF GOD EVER INTENDED FOR THAT KIND OF OIL TO BE BURNED! Just the fact that it pollutes the atmosphere so much is a pretty good reason for believing that God didn't intend for it to be burned. I may be wrong but that's my opinion. I think He intended for nice things like wood to be burned. I even wonder about coal, it's so smoky, & oil is smoky. They both pollute the atmosphere.
3. GOD NEVER INTENDED FOR THERE TO BE ANY KIND OF BIG INDUSTRY ANYWAY. The steel industry is probably one of the worst things that ever happened to mankind, because out of the steel industry, the knowledge of how to make steel‚ has come weapons of war & automobiles & nearly all the evils of the World!
4. ABOUT THE ONLY HEAT EARLY MAN NEEDED WAS TO KEEP HIMSELF WARM, IF HE NEEDED IT AT ALL. Adam & Eve didn't even need clothes! Apparently they had such an ideal climate in the Garden of Eden they didn't have to have any heat! They could live outdoors. Originally they didn't have to do any cooking either.
5. SO IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN‚ IN THE IDEAL CONDITIONS GOD INTENDED FOR MAN TO LIVE IN, THERE WAS NO NEED FOR FUEL OF ANY KIND. They didn't have to cook, didn't have to heat, so they didn't have to pollute the atmosphere. But then when man did have to start cooking, he used the obviously most available fuel, which was originally wood.
6. THE ONLY KIND OF OIL MAN KNEW IN THE EARLY DAYS WAS OIL THAT CAME FROM FATS & GREASES & OLIVES & THINGS LIKE THAT. They weren't allowed to eat the fat‚ the fat is unclean meat, & that's why I've tried to get our girls to trim the fat off of meat. You can cook it in the fat or something like that if it needs cooking in the fat‚ but at least by the time you get it to your plate you ought to cut the fat off. You're not supposed to eat the fat! (Lev.3:17) You'll notice me always skinning my chicken, because the skin is where the fat is & I never eat those pieces of fat. According to Mosaic Law, fat is unclean meat. Even if it's from a clean animal, the fat is unclean. And all the other interior organs, the gall bladder, called "caul" in the Bible, & the "reins," which were the kidneys, those are unclean. So the dear Britishers' kidney pies are unclean meat.
7. BUT EARLY MAN HAD WOOD FOR FUEL & HIS CAMPFIRE TO HEAT HIS CAVE OR CABIN OR TENT OR WHATEVER IT WAS. Tents used to have a hole in the top so they could build a fire even inside & the smoke could go out. That's why the wigwams of the Indians were built in such a way. Most people don't realise how big they were‚ at least as wide as this room is wide this way, & with the points about 15-20 feet overhead, the top of the wigwam, with a hole this big.—I mean real Indian wigwams out West when the Indians were still living in them, not just in the circus or something.
8. WHEN I WAS A LITTLE BOY THEY STILL HAD A LOT OF INDIANS IN THE UNITED STATES WHO WERE STILL LIVING OUT IN THE OPEN, & THEY COULD BUILD A FIRE IN THEIR TEEPEES. They had a doorway with a flap they flung across the door to shut it when they wanted to, they built a fire in there, & if they made it right it would have a good draught from the doorway & blow the smoke right out through the hole in the ceiling so it didn't get too smokey in there & kept them warm. They had nice fragrant wood to burn, leaves, branches & twigs—we used to call it kindling wood—& even if you smell it, it smells good. It couldn't kill you as long as you didn't get too much.
9. THE ONLY OTHER FUEL THEY HAD WERE FATS & OILS. You've heard the stories about the Eskimos who used the fats that they got off the animals & the fish & seals‚ etc., that they'd kill for the fire. You've heard the old expression, "he threw the fat in the fire." If you want to see a fire, just throw some fat in it! That's how many a house burns down, the fat or grease on the stove catches fire!
10. FRED HAD A $50,000 HOME, & THEY WERE MAKING FRENCH FRIED POTATOES, DEEP FRIED IN REAL HOT GREASE. The cook ran outside to see about the children just for a few minutes, forgot the fire, the grease caught fire in the pan, & there were wooden cupboards over the stove. That's the stupidest thing anybody could do in building a house is to build wooden cupboards over the cookstove! The wooden cupboards caught fire & by the time she caught up with the children & turned back toward the house, the house was already ablaze, smoking!—And it burned most of it down!
11. SO FRYING WITH DEEP FAT IS VERY DANGEROUS, GIRLS! You ought to know by this time, you cooks, that cooking in the kitchen is a dangerous job, because for one thing you're fooling with sharp knives & things, & you're also playing with fire & all kinds of food combinations which can be almost as dangerous!
12. WHO DO YOU SUPPOSE MADE THE FIRST FIRE? (Fam: Cain?) Why would you say Cain? What was the matter with Abel's sacrifice? Abel's was the sacrifice the Lord accepted. It says very clearly, the Lord Himself told Cain that he didn't have the right sacrifice or He would have accepted it. Cain was a farmer & he offered the fruit of his field & he thought that would be enough, instead of the blood sacrifice which apparently God had already ordained even that early. Abel was a herdsman, a shepherd, so he offered one of his sheep, a blood sacrifice. (Gen.4:2-5)
13. CAIN, APPARENTLY BEING QUITE JEALOUS OF HIS BROTHER ALREADY, DIDN'T WANT TO HAVE TO BUY A SHEEP FROM HIS BROTHER, because that would have shown that his brother had something he needed & wanted & he'd have had to have given up some of his grain & the fruit of his fields to his brother for the sheep. That would have made a very nice combination. That way Cain would have gotten the meat he needed, & Abel would have gotten the vegetables he needed, right? But Cain didn't want to do it for some reason. He just decided he was going to sacrifice his fruit as an offering.
14. NOW MAYBE IT'S PURE THEORY, BUT ACCORDING TO LATER SACRIFICIAL LAW—& I'M INCLINED TO BELIEVE IT—HOW DID THEY KNOW WHETHER THE SACRIFICE WAS ACCEPTED OR NOT? It has something to do with what I was just talking about. (Fam: If it burnt.) Exactly! An example of that in the Bible is Elijah: When the prophets of Baal offered their sacrifice it was not burnt. Their god was dead, in fact he didn't even exist!—Or if he did, he was the Devil & the Lord didn't let him do it. But when Elijah offered his sacrifice, even though he poured gallons of water on it & dug a ditch around it & everything else‚ the Lord sent fire down from Heaven & devoured it just the same. That must have been quite a clap of thunder, quite a lightning bolt that devoured that—boom! (1Kings 18)
15. APPARENTLY THAT'S THE WAY THE LORD INDICATED IN THOSE EARLY DAYS WHETHER THE SACRIFICE WAS ACCEPTED OR NOT, THE LORD HIMSELF BURNED IT. Now that's just my theory‚ you don't have to believe it if you don't want to‚ but mine's as good as yours! Otherwise, you tell me how they knew whether their sacrifice was accepted or not. The Lord told Cain that his sacrifice was not accepted & Abel's was. I've heard preachers say, "Well, the Lord says it's only because he had sin in his heart or sin at the door, it wasn't because it was the wrong kind of sacrifice." Well, I don't believe that either.
16. I BELIEVE THAT THE LORD BEGAN WITH THE BLOOD SACRIFICES AS A TYPE OF CHRIST, A FORESHADOWING‚ LONG BEFORE THEY WERE EVER INSTITUTED BY THE MOSAIC LAW. There were obviously other laws in force in those days long before the Mosaic law. Job is said to be possibly the oldest Book in the Bible because of certain things which I don't have time to go into now, the absence of the Mosaic Law & a lot of other things. That doesn't mean that he was older than Moses or Noah or Adam. Moses wrote the first five Books of the Bible & he lived around 1500 B.C. And contrary to evolution‚ man had been in existence only 2,500 years before that!
17. SO THE BOOK OF JOB IS SAID TO BE FROM SOME TIME IN THAT PERIOD PREVIOUS TO THE TIME OF MOSES. I don't know how they know, they explained it to me when I was in Bible College but I've forgotten. I don't know whether it's very important or not anyway‚ but there are certain characteristics of the Book that look like it was older. Quite obviously he was on very good speaking terms with the Lord at the time, God spoke to him, he talked to God.—About the way Enoch did, I presume. It says that Enoch walked with God, communed with God. (Gen.5:22)
18. ENOCH WAS ONE OF THE ONLY TWO MEN THAT WE KNOW OF IN THE BIBLE WHO NEVER DIED AS FAR AS WE KNOW‚ THE OTHER ONE WAS ELIJAH. Well, they must have passed through some kind of death experience because God's Word says, "It is appointed unto man once to die." (Heb.9:27) Everybody has to die at least once. Even Jesus' physical normal body had to die. But apparently their transition was so quick they hardly knew what happened. "Enoch walked with God & he was not, because God took him." (Gen.5:24) Elijah was caught up in a chariot of fire. (2Kings 2:11) So that's encouraging! Davidito loves cars, at least you can encourage him that there must be chariots in Heaven!
19. I TOLD YOU HOW FAITHY LOVED TO SWIM, SHE WAS A REGULAR FISH WHEN SHE WAS YOUNG! If she couldn't go swimming every day she just thought it wasn't a day at all! If you let her‚ she'd stay in the water all day & swim & swim & dive & dive. She thought nothing of diving from a 30-foot board. She was a good swimmer, good diver, very athletic. I remember one time when she was about eight years old—apparently she'd thought about it—she said,
20. "DADDY, ARE WE GOING TO SWIM IN HEAVEN?"—Like the old Negro spiritual they used to sing, "If they ain't got bananas in Heaven, I don't wanna go There!" Well, I had to do some fast thinking. I didn't want to disappoint her, so I thought real fast & I always ask the Lord for an answer & usually a Scripture. I tried to think of a Scripture about swimming.—"Waters to swim in!" When Ezekiel saw the vision of the Heavenly City, just like John, he saw a river flowing through it. He stepped out in the river first of all up to his ankles, then to his knees, & finally he said, "Waters to swim in!" (Eze.47:2-5) So I said, "Yes, Faithy, there's going to be swimming in Heaven! Hallelujah!" And she was very happy. The River of the Water of Life is going to flow right through the City, enough water to swim in! PTL!
21. SO NOW WHERE WAS I? IF YOU'RE KEEPING GOOD NOTES YOU CAN REMIND ME! Did you ever hear one of these preachers who lose their train of thought but go on & pretend they didn't forget what they were talking about? They go right on & leave you hanging someplace & don't finish the story. That's pride, if they're ashamed to admit they forgot what they were talking about! So one of the best ways in the World for a speaker to keep humble is‚ when he forgets what he's talking about, to ask you! It's a good way to find out if you were listening! I used to do that with my kids at school. I'm always wandering off on some sidepath & forget where I started & get lost somewhere.
22. WELL‚ THE MAIN SUBJECT WAS WAY BACK ON THE HISTORY OF FIRE! What a lesson I can get out of burning the trash, huh? Why did we mention Job‚ anyway?—It's the oldest Book. He seemed to be on good talking terms with the Lord, no Mosaic Law apparently existed at the time & several other reasons. I don't think there's any mention of sacrifice in Job. I've forgotten exactly all the reasons they give that Job is the oldest Book‚ but there are several things. You can read it sometime.
23. I USED TO ASK STUDENTS‚ "WELL, WHAT DID YOU READ IN THE BIBLE TODAY?" And I've actually had people have the nerve to tell me‚ "Oh‚ I read the Book of Job today." I could almost sure as anything tell them, "You're lying!" I don't think anybody hardly ever read the whole Book of Job in one day! If you did, you didn't know what you were reading!
24. SO I WOULD ASK THEM, "WELL, DID YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU READ?" "Oh yes, of course I understood what I read!" Then I knew they hadn't read it! Because it is one of the deepest Books in the whole Bible & I wouldn't suggest you start on that one. Start on something very childlike like the Gospel of John, but not the Book of Job! Talk about deep philosophy & theology & all of that, just try the Book of Job!
25. MY CLASS IN COLLEGE DECIDED TO DO THE BOOK OF JOB FOR THEIR GRADUATION PLAY, & they did a very wise thing. I went to a Mormon college, by the way. You say, "Ah, that's where he got all those screwy ideas!"—Ha! Well, that was just one of about a half-a-dozen colleges I went to! I went to a whole lot of colleges—in the front door & out the back door!
26. BUT THEY DID IT, & THEY DID AN AMAZING JOB! I was amazed at our drama class. It got a little bit heavy & boring sometimes‚ but they had Job up there & they had his three comforters & they were quoting in sort of discussion style, dialogue style quoting, I wouldn't say most of it, but a tremendous amount of the whole Book of Job! The actor who played Job quoted his passages, & the comforters quoted each one of their passages & they carried on this conversation.
27. THEY EVEN HAD GOD SPEAKING FROM HEAVEN WITH LIGHTNING & THUNDER & A BIG BASS VOICE TALKING TO JOB!—AND IT WAS HEAVY! I think it was about the heaviest drama I ever saw. A lot of people got bored & almost went to sleep, because you just can't swallow that stuff that fast. He was spouting it off & spouting away & it's not that easy to understand. So you don't exactly read the whole Book of Job in one day—unless you've got all day—& then I doubt you'll understand it. It's a very rich Book.
28. SO MOSES DIDN'T LIVE UNTIL THE 1500s, & THERE WERE 2,500 YEARS OF HISTORY BEFORE THAT, & most Bible students believe that they were offering blood sacrifices even before that, commanded by the Lord, but not eating them until after the Flood, about 2,500 B.C. Let's say in round numbers that Creation was about 4,000 years before Christ, the Flood was not until 2,500 years before Christ, so in that 1,500 years between Creation & the Flood man ate nothing but what?—Fruits & vegetables—herbs!
29. MAN WAS STRICTLY VEGETARIAN FOR 1,500 YEARS! So it's possible, folks, & I'm not going to criticise the poor vegetarians who won't eat meat!—Which includes not only certain Oriental religions, but also the Seventh-day Adventists & a few others who do not believe in eating any kind of meat. There's a certain kind of Adventist who will eat fish, but no other flesh, & they eat fish only because it said Jesus ate fish.
30. THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS ARE STRONG ON VEGETARIANISM. They won't say you're going to be lost if you don't stick to your vegetarianism‚ but they just claim you'll be healthier if you don't eat anything but vegetables. I've seen some pretty big stout robust strong healthy husky vegetarians in my day, have you? And they've got a point there‚ providing they eat vegetables that are good for them.
31. NOW IF THEY ATE VEGETABLES THE WAY THEY'RE COOKED IN MOST AMERICAN HOMES‚ THEY PROBABLY WOULDN'T LAST VERY LONG!—Because all the food value & the vitamins & everything are all cooked out & are drained off & poured down the drain. When they take it off the stove‚ they pour the liquid off & pour it down the drain & there goes nearly all the food value! About all they're eating is roughage or cellulose, just junk. They're not getting the vitamins or the minerals or the real food value at all. So I doubt if they'd last very long on nothing but vegetables the way the Americans cook them. But I'm sure the Lord intended for them to eat the fruits & the vegetables & the grains in their whole normal natural state as much as possible, even raw if they could.
32. THERE'S ONLY ONE PURPOSE IN COOKING A VEGETABLE & WHAT IS THAT? (Fam: To clean it?) Well, that might give us two purposes.—Especially if you're in Mexico & places like that where they raise vegetables in human manure for fertiliser & they have a lot of cholera & typhus & stuff like that. It's not a very good idea to eat those vegetables unless they're both very well scrubbed & very thoroughly cooked. Most poor countries, India & lots of places‚ fertilise with human dung & it's one of the greatest spreaders of human disease! It can be taken on by the vegetables that grow in it & spread by them.
33. SO WHEN YOU'RE IN A POOR COUNTRY, BE SURE YOU WASH & COOK YOUR VEGETABLES THOROUGHLY! I would say in some of these countries it's not even safe to eat a salad in a restaurant! In fact, quite often even in Tenerife Maria would go over her salad thoroughly, turning over the leaves, & she'd find bugs or worms or dirt! They just weren't too careful about washing things. And you can get other diseases as well. So thank you for that point, there are two good reasons to cook vegetables.—What's the other?
34. I DON'T SUPPOSE THERE WERE ALL THOSE DISEASES IN THE EARLY DAYS, & the only reason they would have cooked vegetables then was if they were too tough to chew & swallow & digest raw, then they had to cook it a little bit to soften it up enough to be able to eat it. Whereas any health dietician or naturopath or herbal doctor or naturist will tell you it's best to eat your vegetables raw if possible. That's why coleslaw is one of my favourite vegetables‚ because it's the one vegetable you can get at the average American table in its raw state & yet edible. Most Americans eat their vegetables cooked to death & all the life has gone out of them by the time you eat them! All you get is maybe some minerals & maybe a little roughage to keep your bowels moving.
35. WHEN MAN WAS FIRST CREATED HE ATE THE FRUIT RIGHT OFF THE TREES! When we pick these fruits off the trees out here‚ you don't have to cook them, you don't have to soften them—but you'd better wash them because you don't know where they sprayed the trees or what kind of pollution coming down out of the atmosphere is settling on them, so wash them. But otherwise they're ready prepared to eat & you can eat the package & all, how about that? In fact, the peeling contains a lot of vitamins & minerals that are very good for you. God is the most amazing Packager in the World!
36. MY, THERE'S SUCH A VARIETY OF FRUITS IN THE WORLD, THEY MUST HAVE HAD THEM ALL IN THE GARDEN! I'll bet God had a sample of every fruit tree there was so Adam could try them all! He didn't have to cook them, he needed no fuel‚ the climate was ideal & they didn't need clothes, so they certainly didn't need any fire!—Sounds like some of the Tropical countries I've lived in where you were better off without clothes. Nudist camps would be great if everybody was as beautiful as you are, but it seems some of the people who join those nudist camps are ugly ! Some of those people I have seen on Miami Beach are almost unbelievable! They look like they ought to have been in a sideshow!
37. ANYHOW, THEY DIDN'T NEED ANY FUEL & THEY DIDN'T NEED ANY HEAT! Apparently then the World had an ideal climate, no heat was needed, no fuel was needed & everything was perfectly pure & there was no pollution. The only pollution there was was man himself, or animal wastes, & the way God has made most animals, cats bury their waste & certain kinds of dogs bury them. Sad to say, most dogs don't, & there's hardly anything worse to get on your foot or your shoe!
38. IN THOSE DAYS WHEN GOD USED TO WALK WITH ADAM EVERY EVENING IN THE COOL OF THE DAY, HE MUST HAVE TOLD HIM A LOT OF THINGS. After all, here was the first man & he had nobody else to teach him how to live, what to eat, what not to eat & how to survive! The streams were not polluted with all kinds of chemical plants & whatnot, so he could drink the water pretty safely. There weren't any other people to pollute the streams, nobody could pollute them but himself. So I'm sure the Lord must have instructed him what to do with his own wastes, which He later did in the Mosaic Law, to dig a hole in the ground & bury it.
39. BUT THERE WERE NO FIRES AS FAR AS WE KNOW, THEY WEREN'T NEEDED.—Unless that was God's method of accepting their sacrifices, the fire that came down from Heaven. So there was no pollution. The only kind of real wastes were vegetable wastes which fell down & enriched the soil it fell on, & animal wastes which also fertilised the soil it fell on, so there was no real pollution.
40. EVEN ALL OF THE GOD-CREATED WASTES SUCH AS ANIMAL & VEGETABLE WASTES ARE USEFUL, they serve to nourish & replenish & fertilise the soil, to replenish the minerals & the chemicals needed in the soil. In other words, the wastes which God created in His Own created animals & human beings were useful. You may not like the smell of that manure next door, but it's real good for the plants, amen?
41. I BELIEVE THE BIBLE! I BELIEVE IT HAPPENED JUST LIKE IT SAYS! I believe man lived just like that with no clothes, picking fruit off the trees, & his & the wastes of the animals that the Lord had already created also merely going back dust-to–dust from where they came, to continue to replenish the nutrients of the soil. Amen?
42. IT SHOWS YOU HOW GOD HAD A PLAN FOR EVERYTHING! God's design‚ God's plan was perfect!—Nothing wasted, nothing polluted, but everything pure‚ everything good, even animal wastes useful in replenishing the soil. But of course man fell & had to go to work & really work hard‚ not just easily picking the fruit off the trees like he had while keeping the Garden.
43. WHAT HE HAD TO DO TO KEEP THE GARDEN, I DON'T KNOW. I don't think he had any hedges to trim, I'm sure he didn't have to mow the lawn—the sheep & the cows & the goats did that for him. The goats even trim your trees head high, so no trimming. So just what he had to do to keep it, I don't know, unless it was pruning. That would have been a good job, to prune the fruit trees. That means to cut off the branches that didn't bear fruit. Well, maybe everything was so perfect that all the branches bore fruit‚ I don't know!
44. IN ADAM'S DAY THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO GROW GRAIN OR VEGETABLES, HE JUST ATE THE FRUIT OFF THE TREES! He didn't have to dig up potatoes, he didn't have to dig up carrots. If you've ever done that, you know what a dirty hard job it is. Some of you guys have never lived on a farm & don't know what I'm talking about, you thought potatoes grew on trees! He didn't have to dig up those plants‚ neither did he have to till the ground, he didn't have to plow, he didn't have to sow grain, he didn't have to harvest grain. He harvested fruit, but not the grain.
45. THERE WAS SO MUCH HE DIDN'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT—LIKE CANNING IT FOR THE WINTER, BECAUSE THERE WASN'T ANY WINTER ANYHOW! I remember when I was a boy‚ the big job that all the farm women did in the Summer on the farm was canning all the fruit. They picked much more fruit than they could possibly eat, so somebody invented canning & everybody was busy canning with mason jars, which was the most popular. You put the fruit in these glass jars & you literally cooked it right in the jars in boiling water, which killed every germ in the jar, then you sealed it still hot.
46. I WASN'T A FARMER, BUT I LIVED ON A FARM. I lived six years on the Ranch in Texas—that's before the other guys got there, & another year after that. And in my parents' work, evangelistic work, church work, we frequently lived out on a farm with some farmer in his home as their guest, so I spent a lot of time on farms when I was a kid. Well, maybe I'd better finish my story of fire, I'm just trying to prove something to you!
47. I'M TRYING TO PROVE TO YOU, AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED‚ THAT GOD NEVER INTENDED MAN TO HAVE TO USE EITHER COAL OR OIL, THOSE POLLUTING FUMES!—Because Adam didn't have to use any at all, not even wood, because he didn't have to have any fires! Even after man fell, all he had to do additional to his work he had before was to plow & sow seed, grow grain & harvest it. And if you know anything about whole raw grain, I don't think there are very many people who can eat it in that state. It's so hard you can't even grind it between your teeth. Did you ever try? It's pretty hard to do!
48. SO ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS MAN LEARNED TO DO WAS TO GRIND GRAIN WITH STONES OR A MORTAR & PESTLE. A mortar was a little stone bowl & a pestle was another stone shaped sort of like a penis, & they pounded the grain with it in this little bowl. And in many places in the World they still do that. Then they later learned to make mills with mill stones, which were big round stones, one on the bottom like a butcher's table, stationary, & one on top, round. They had holes in the side of the edge of this big stone, & they stuck these poles in there & harnessed an animal, an ox or something, to the pole to pull it & turn it around & around. They had a hole in the middle through which they poured the whole grain & a trough completely around the outside of the tablestone, so that as the ground grain worked its way out from the middle where they poured in the whole grain, by the time it got out to the edge it was flour & kept dropping into this trough.
49. LATER ON THEY INVENTED WHEELS THAT WERE TURNED BY WATER, a big water wheel & a gear system, & you can probably still find those some places. Some very smart men figured these things out. Can you imagine the first guys that figured that out? I mean, that was really something!—Where man no longer had to use an animal that he had to feed to do this long tedious process, instead he got some water that he didn't have to feed to run the wheel & grind the grain! Then of course he had to make it into dough & cook it into bread.
50. WHO DO YOU SUPPOSE TAUGHT MAN HOW TO MAKE A FIRE?—GOD PROBABLY STARTED A FIRE FOR THEM BY A BOLT OF LIGHTNING! And to this day in certain tribes & villages‚ once they've got the fire going they keep it going eternally, so to speak. Everybody in the village who wants a fire comes & plucks a coal out of the fire & takes it to his house to start his fire. They keep a fire burning continuously, night & day, & it's somebody's job to stay there by it all night & keep the fire going all the time.
51. LATER ON, MAN LEARNED HOW TO MAKE A FIRE BY FRICTION‚ BY A STICK & A HOLLOW SOFT PIECE OF WOOD. Then he learned to make it by a bow with a string on it that was wrapped once around the pole, & you pull it back & forth & it makes it spin very rapidly. He learned to make fires by friction‚ & probably later on yet by flint, striking sparks into some tinder. They were still doing that just even a couple hundred years ago!
52. MATCHES ARE A FAIRLY RECENT INVENTION! When I was a kid in post-World War 1 days we called them "lucifers"! There was an old WW1 song they used to sing: "Give me a lucifer to light my fag, & smile, boys‚ smile!"—A poor doughboy's song from WW1.
53. THEY APPARENTLY HAD NO FIRES UNTIL AFTER THE FALL OF MAN when he had to grow grain & make bread‚ & probably cooking bread was one of the very first fires he ever needed. In fact, we have no evidence that the climate even changed until after the Flood.
54. WHEN THEY ATE OF THE TREE OF GOOD & EVIL IN THE GARDEN, THE LORD SAID‚ "FROM NOW ON YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO EAT YOUR BREAD IN THE SWEAT OF YOUR FACE!" (Gen.3:19) It does not say "brow," but it's the same thing. Some of these people that strain over these little technicalities! He said from now on you're going to have to till the ground & eat your bread in the sweat of your face! In other words, from now on it was going to be hard work to earn a living! It was going to be hard work to produce food. Whereas Man had been in the Garden previously & could just pick it off the trees, now God thrust him out where he was going to have to till the ground, plow‚ sow, reap, & on top of that, grind it & bake it & all the rest!
55. THE CURSE WAS PROBABLY INTENDED TO BE A BLESSING, because I imagine when Adam & Eve were in the Garden & they didn't have very much to do, they had a lot of spare time to play around & play with each other & pretty much enjoy life. They didn't have to really work real hard, they had some work to do but not very hard. But after the fall of Man & sin entered in, Man could not be trusted with so much spare time. He had to work very hard & be kept very busy to keep him out of trouble. I believe it! He had to work so hard he didn't have any time to get into mischief!
56. WHEN I WAS YOUNG, MOST KIDS WERE REARED IN HARD-WORKING FAMILIES WHERE EVERYBODY WORKED ON THE FARM, INCLUDING THE LITTLE KIDS. Small kids like this went out to feed the chickens & collect the eggs. Everybody had something to do & everybody was busy & nobody had time to waste looking for trouble! Now all of this artificial mechanisation & industrialisation has made it so simple for man to live, to get his food & his clothes & his housing he has too much time!
57. THEY DIDN'T HAVE ANY HOUSES IN ADAM'S DAY‚ THEY DIDN'T NEED THEM, & AS FAR AS WE KNOW, THE CLIMATE DIDN'T CHANGE FROM THEN UNTIL THE FLOOD! Now how can we prove that they still had a nice Tropical climate? It had never rained for one thing, a mist just rose from the face of the ground. Another thing, by some modern scientific discoveries they were recently lifting a mammoth out of the ice in Siberia, perfectly fresh preserved meat that had been buried in ice for thousands of years!
58. THOSE STUPID IDIOTS THE EVOLUTIONISTS SAY IT'S BEEN THERE FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS, but we know that it couldn't have been there more than how many years? When did God's quick-freeze deep-freeze occur?—It apparently occurred during the Flood when that upper water layer suddenly disappeared, the water which was above the firmament fell & joined the water under the firmament to cause the Flood!
59. THAT'S PROBABLY ALSO WHAT REMOVED OUR PROTECTION FROM THE COSMIC RAYS THAT KILL US, & why before the Flood they lived a thousand years, & after the Flood they didn't live much more than a hundred. Because when that big layer of water up there was gone, then the cosmic rays came through easily & that's what they say kills you.
60. BUT THEY HAVE FOUND MAMMOTHS IN SIBERIA & GIANT HORSES IN GLACIERS IN ALASKA which somehow or another looked like they were frozen solid right on their feet where they stood, instant deep-freeze, with fresh green grass still in their mouths! You have to go to the Tundra or some place like that to even get grass. I don't know how they figure this happened, at sometime or another, they call it the Ice Age‚ somehow or another it froze so quick it caught some of these animals. I don't know how they think it did it, I don't know how it happened either, but God knows!
61. SCIENTISTS WHO ARE CHRISTIANS THEORISE THAT THE FLOOD HAPPENED SO SUDDENLY THESE ANIMALS WERE CAUGHT IN THE FLOOD & THE CHANGE OF CLIMATE AT THE SAME TIME & THEY FROZE! It was not only a flood, but it froze! And this is what they now call the Ice Age. So when they uncovered them‚ that meat was fresh‚ the grass was fresh! It was an instant change of climate, an instant immediate change of climate!—Also, they've been found in locations where such animals today could not have survived because there's such a difference in climate. So there's every indication that in those Northern areas there was a warm Tropical climate! Isn't that what they taught you in school? There are a few things they teach you in school that could be right. There was a warm Tropical climate all over the globe at one time & the whole World had the same climate! I don't know about the Polar areas, but they may have had pretty much the same Tropical zone climate.
62. SO THEY DIDN'T NEED ANY FIRES! They didn't have to have anything to warm them or their houses. I'm not going to swear to it & I can't necessarily prove it, but they probably didn't need fires or fuel for heating very much until after the Flood.
63. THEY DID HAVE A SLIGHT CHANGE IN SEASON. Even in Florida you get a little change of season. Because the Lord said in the 8th chapter of Genesis that as long as the Earth would endure there would be Summer & Winter, Springtime & Harvest. (Gen.8:22) So there was apparently some amount of seasonal change, but it was not enough that they had to worry too much about heat.
64. SOME THEORISE THAT MAYBE RIGHT AFTER MAN WAS PUT OUT OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN THE CLIMATE BEGAN TO CHANGE‚ BECAUSE GOD HAD TO GET THEM A COUPLE OF FUR COATS! That's where it all began‚ fellows! You guys here don't have to worry about buying your wives fur coats‚ but the poor guys in the World who want to show they've made it‚ they've got to sport their wife around in a fur coat! So you can blame it on Eve, she was the one who wanted the first fur coat! (That's supposed to be a joke!) At least it's told in the Bible that God furnished them with fur coats after the Fall. (Gen.3:21) I don't know whether this was just to cover their sinful nakedness now that they knew they were naked, when Man first began to think it was evil, because of his own evil thoughts, or whether it was actually a climatic necessity, that it was cold outside the Garden or turned cold & they needed fur coats.
65. BUT YOU CAN THEORISE ALL YOU WANT—LIKE ME! Ha! Some of the things I'm telling you tonight are facts‚ I can prove them by the Bible, but some are theories, my own ideas or somebody else's ideas, & I always try to tell you which is which. Some of this I've told you about fire we know is a fact, that Adam didn't need any fires, but some is theory.
66. SO WHEN DID FIRES START? WHEN DID THEY BEGIN? Maybe they had them for the sacrifice, maybe it was only when they first had to bake bread, maybe it wasn't until after Noah & the Flood & they started eating animal flesh & found out it tastes better cooked, who knows? But anyhow, they didn't have to pollute the atmosphere with oil & coal & all the rest. See how far I can get just on the subject of burning trash! Well, I hope you learned something useful. At least maybe it was interesting or entertaining.
67. AMEN, LORD, WE HOPE IT HAS BEEN PROFITABLE & SOMEWHAT EDIFYING & that they've learned a few facts, Lord, that are perhaps helpful, as well as a few that are perhaps only interesting. But we thank Thee for how You have taught us, & we thank Thee for how You have taught man many things that he has learned in his history, & how You must have spent a great deal of time personally teaching early man how to survive, how to live, how to make fire, how to cook. You must have actually had to teach Adam & Eve how to take care of themselves & how to survive in what had become a very hostile World.
68. SO LORD, WE ASK Thee IN JESUS' NAME TO HELP US TO BE THANKFUL FOR THY GOODNESS & MERCY FOR ALL THESE YEARS! You began by taking care of Adam in the very beginning, & even after he & Eve fell & sinned against You, You did not abandon us, Lord, but You were concerned about us & You made them clothes & You undoubtedly taught them how to grow their food & how to cook it & make fires & all the rest that they needed to learn.
69. WE KNOW THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO EXIST FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS TO LEARN THESE THINGS OR THEY WOULD HAVE DIED IN THE PROCESS! Somebody had to teach them quick before they expired! And in Your Love & Your mercy, in spite of their sins & their disobedience & their rebellion‚ You still took care of them & You still helped them & You still had mercy on them & You still helped them to survive, as You have us, Lord.
70. IN SPITE OF ALL OUR MISTAKES & FAILURES & SHORTCOMINGS & WRONG-DOINGS, LORD, YOU FORGIVE US LIKE WE DO OUR CHILDREN, & You continue to try to help us to learn what we need to learn, sometimes by trial & error, so that we will learn how to survive in a wicked World today, a very hostile World. Not only the elements but man himself is our worst enemy, & You've taught us how to not only survive, Lord, but to carry on Thy work of spreading Thy Gospel & showing Thy Love to others. We thank You for the job & for helping us to do it. We thank You for protecting us so we can do it, & we thank You for providing for our needs so we are able to do it, in all of these things. Thank You for Thy provision for man, Lord, down through the ages, from the very beginning.—Your love‚ Your mercy‚ Your kindness, Your provision, Your protection & Your help. TYJ! As we thank You together & pray the prayer, Lord, which You Yourself taught us to pray: (Prays the Lord's Prayer.)
71. LORD, BLESS OUR BRETHREN AROUND THE WORLD! Bless those especially in Germany who are beset by that evil program of persecutors. We ask You to rebuke it & rebuke them & destroy the evil & make it turn to good & to the publication of the Gospel, even if it be the Gospel of controversy! Bless & keep Thy children safely, Lord‚ in spite of their persecutors. In Jesus' name we ask for Thy glory, have Thy way.
72. THE LORD TAKES CARE OF HIS OWN, EVEN ADAM & EVE, EVEN IF YOU WERE NAKED IN THE GARDEN HE'D TAKE CARE OF YOU! I like to be naked in the garden myself sometimes! The other night when it was nice & warm I stripped & took my walk in the altogether. I'm still all together! That's an expression the Americans use meaning naked, "in the altogether." It means all your clothes are together in one spot behind you somewhere, or you're altogether naked. I was walking along in my little skirt, that little towel you've seen me wear sometimes, & it was so nice & warm I just ripped that off too! I had Maria walk down to the side of the yard & I said, "Can you see me? Can you see if I'm naked?" She said, "I can't even see you, much less if you're naked!"
73. IT'S A WONDERFUL GLORIOUS FEELING, A FEELING OF FREEDOM, REAL FREEDOM! Thank God now that we're saved & Christians & our sins are forgiven & we shouldn't have evil minds, we should be able to go naked without any qualms, without any fur coats that God had to make for Adam & Eve & their evil minds! They weren't saved yet‚ don't forget, & when & if they ever were‚ we don't yet know.
74. BUT TODAY WE ARE SAVED, SO TODAY WE'RE JUST AS PURE AS ADAM & EVE WERE BEFORE THEY EVER LEFT THE GARDEN, & we should be just as pure-minded‚ & nudity & sex should be no more evil to us than it was to Adam & Eve. Savvy? That doesn't mean you can go running down the street out here naked, because it is evil to a lot of other people, & they've got laws against it! So don't try it if the neighbours can see you, because they've got evil minds & funny laws which prohibit it, probably for good reasons, because evil men couldn't be trusted with nudity & sexual freedom!
75. EVIL PEOPLE COULD NOT BE TRUSTED WITH THE FREEDOM OF NAKEDNESS, because of their evil minds & what they might do. They cannot be trusted with freedom of sex either, because they would not be sure to use it in love & consideration & in purity. But those of us who are saved & Christians & love the Lord, in His sight we are just as sinless by grace, not necessarily reality‚ but by His grace, His mercy & His Love, as were Adam & Eve in the Garden before they ever fell!—So we're free to go naked & enjoy sex!
76. SO NUDITY, SEX & FREEDOM OF THE BODY & THE FLESH IS NO SIN FOR US! We have just as much freedom if we operate in love & do everything in love, motivated by love, as they had in the Garden!—In fact, possibly more so! Because at that time they really didn't know what sin was, so how could they know what mercy was? They didn't know what hate was, so how could they know what love was? They couldn't really know or appreciate these good things without the bad things!
77. THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT BONDAGE WAS, SO HOW COULD THEY KNOW WHAT FREEDOM WAS? They didn't know what clothes were, so how could they even understand what nakedness was? They didn't know what evil was, so how could they possibly think that anything sexual was evil? It was probably one of the first things Adam did after he got introduced to Eve! Maybe the Lord even taught him how to do it! Well, after seeing Eve & knowing the normal reactions of a man upon seeing a naked woman, I doubt if very much had to be explained, it sort of comes automatic!
78. WELL, PRAISE THE LORD! HOW DID I GET ON SEX AGAIN? No matter what I start on, even if it's burning the trash, I somehow wind up on sex! Well, I don't know about you, but I like it, thank the Lord, & I'm thankful for it! God bless the dear women who supply us men, & I suppose the women are even thankful for most men! Some of you women look a little bit doubtful, I don't know. Well‚ don't bother them too much‚ boys, if they're tired or they're sick or they're not in the mood, don't force yourself or force them.
80. And there's also now no limit to sex in the Family except for two things. First of all, you don't have to get anybody's permission as long as it's with mutual consent of the parties involved."—That means with all the parties involved & all of those affected, which could be the whole Home! As long as it's with consent & as long as it's legal!
81. THAT CHANGES THE PICTURE WHERE THERE IS NOT TOTAL FREEDOM‚ BECAUSE WE DON'T LIVE IN A FREE WORLD. Do you understand? We live in a World that's full of laws against freedom.
82. SO ALTHOUGH GOD HAS GIVEN US ALL THIS FREEDOM OURSELVES, WE CANNOT BE TOTALLY FREE BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A WORLD THAT'S NOT FREE‚ & WHICH HAS ALL KINDS OF LAWS AGAINST FREEDOM! So you have to watch out you don't break those laws!
83. BUT IN OUR FFing OUTSIDE THE FAMILY, YOU MEAN YOU CAN FF WITHOUT SEX? Some of you are thinking, "I thought FFing meant fucking!" Some of them seem to think that those two "f's" stand for fuck fuck! Yes, well maybe that isn't really technically 100% true that you can FF without any sex involved, because your sex is involved even if it doesn't get to the point of actual intercourse or even petting! I already told you in "Look of Love!" (ML #304) that you can even look a person in the eye & turn them on, but that's not against the law! It's turning them on in bed that can be against the law if it happens to be illegal in some way!
84. SO ALTHOUGH WE HAVE THE FREEDOM—& AS FAR AS GOD'S CONCERNED, HE'S HAPPY FOR US TO HAVE THE FREEDOM—WATCH OUT FOR THE SYSTEM! The Devil is the author of the System, the god of this World! He is the author of their whole System & they have laws which are against freedom‚ so watch out you don't violate their laws.
85. DON'T YOU THINK I MADE IT CLEAR ENOUGH? What the hell's wrong with those people? I said sex, yes, as long as it's legal & with consent! And what have I taught you about sex? Sex is only in real love providing it doesn't hurt anybody—or at least it doesn't hurt them without their consent. Sometimes it can hurt even if you're FFing, but it's with consent.
86. IF IT'S IN REAL LOVE IT'S NOT GOING TO HURT ANYBODY‚ or certainly it's not going to be done without their consent. And that does not necessarily mean just the two parties involved, there might be others involved‚ you might be involving the whole Home in some way or the other party's husband or wife or mate or something. So whatever it is, I said with sex within the Family you no longer have to ask any permission, as long as it's legal & with consent, Savvy?
87. OF COURSE A LOT OF LAWS, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY ARE! In most countries you're unfamiliar with their laws. I'm telling you, the U.S. has so many laws it's ridiculous! In many places in the U.S. it's illegal to spit! In most places in the U.S. it's illegal to repair your house without the consent of the government! You can't even change a doorway, not a thing that is a basic change to any part of your house without a building permit! You cannot do a thing with your car, in many States you cannot even sell it or junk it without the permission of the government!
88. SO WHO REALLY OWNS THE CAR? WHO REALLY OWNS YOUR HOUSE?—THE PERSON WHO TELLS YOU WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH IT & WHAT YOU CAN'T DO WITH IT! So who really owns your body? In this World, the government thinks it owns your body. So Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, & unto God the things that are God's." (Mat.22:21) And you're going to find out, if you don't know it already‚ that in this World the government thinks it owns your body & tells you what to do with it & what not to do with it, right? Absolutely!
89. WELL, IN SOME WAYS GOVERNMENTS ARE FOR OUR BENEFIT BECAUSE OF WICKED PEOPLE. Otherwise, if there were no laws, they would be robbing you & murdering you & raping you & doing all kinds of things to you! So the law is for the lawbreaker, the Bible says, not for the righteous. (1Tim.1:9) The righteous one loves, he doesn't do his neighbour damage, right? But they have to have all these laws for the sake of all the people who do bad, evil, unloving, harmful things.
90. SEE, THE LAWS REALLY WERE NOT MADE FOR YOU, BUT YOU GOT CAUGHT IN THE SAME TRAP! The law had to insist on its ownership of the bodies of the members of the state in order to make sure everybody behaves themselves according to what they think is right. It's not always what God thinks is right, but it's better than nothing! But at the same time you have to abide under the laws too, though you are righteous, though you are good, though you are loving, though you wouldn't think of hurting a flea!—Well, I'll take that back, I love to kill fleas, & flies, I love to kill them too. I'm not a total pacifist, I believe in killing the Devil's pests, anything that annoys us that we don't have to have.
91. THOUGH YOU ARE GOOD, LOVING, GOOD-INTENTIONED‚ LAW-ABIDING, PEACEFUL, wouldn't hurt your neighbour, wouldn't hurt someone in your own Home or anything else, because there are lots of other people who would‚ you have to live under the same laws & they apply to you. Therefore your freedom is restricted by laws intended for the wicked, because they cannot be trusted with freedom.
92. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A WILD ANIMAL, A RAVENOUS ANIMAL WHICH MIGHT BITE YOU OR DESTROY YOU? What do you have to do with them? You have to either put them in a cage or kill them, one or the other. Wicked, evil man is a wild animal! Look what those guerrillas & terrorists are doing in Rhodesia & places like that. I mean, even the animals would hardly do that! When man becomes wicked & evil he's worse than the animals!
93. SO BECAUSE THE REST OF MANKIND ARE WILD ANIMALS & ARE UNLOVING & UNKIND & EVIL‚ YOU HAVE TO LIVE IN THEIR SAME CAGE & under the same laws & restrictions & prohibitions, & you can't really enjoy your freedom except perhaps inside your own house. Here you can go naked as long as the neighbours don't see you or as long as we don't have visitors.
94. WELL, THAT WAS A LITTLE BONUS LESSON I JUST THREW IN EXTRA.