The Awakening

We’re told in the very first chapter of the Book of John, “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17) Unnumbered volumes have been written about this grace versus law. Tonight I’m speaking not through theory; I’m speaking from experience. And so, we’re called upon to pass on to other generations, succeeding generations, our testimony. As we’re told in the 1st Epistle of John, 1st chapter, the first three verses: “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard and seen with our eyes...that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also unto you, so that you may have fellowship with us.” For these are the two births that take place in every individual in the world. No one brings about his own physical birth; he is born by the action of powers not his own. And no one brings about his own spiritual birth; he is born by the action of powers beyond his own. The first, we admit we are here, clothed in this garment of flesh. We find ourselves here, but we know we never had a thing to do about it; it’s simply we found ourselves here. So you will find yourself born spiritually in the same miraculous manner. You’ll be born from above, just as you are born here from below. Here, we are born from below from the womb of a woman. Then will come another act, God’s mightiest act, and you will be begotten and born from above by the action of powers not your own. We turn first to the law. In the very beginning, God established the law of identical harvest: “And let the earth put forth vegetation, trees yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its own kind.” (Genesis 1:11) Here we find the harvest is nothing more than the multiplication of the identical seed. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked, whatever a man sows, so shall he reap.” (Galatians 6:7) That’s in this world, this law. Tonight I will show you what I have found about this sowing. Causation in our world is really mental. It was not always known as a mental state, it was believed in the beginning to be physical, and so laws were instituted and men abided by these laws outwardly. They observed the law. Then came the great revelation of “grace” that interpreted the law, thus bringing grace. “For,” said he, “do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.” And then he interprets law for us and puts it on a mental plane: “You have heard it said by men of old, ‘Thou shalt not,’’’ and he states it. “But I say unto you” and then he puts it on an entirely different level. And not one statement conveys it more graphically than that one: “You’ve heard it said of old, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ But I say unto you, to look upon a woman lustfully is to have already committed the act with her in your heart.” (Mat.5:27) Not to restrain the impulse, that’s not good enough; but not having the desire, for then you haven’t committed the act. But to have the desire and because of the consequences of your act you restrain the impulse, that is still not good enough. The act was committed with the impulse. Now here, we are on an entirely different level, a mental level, and this is what I discovered about this level. I could stand here physically and see any part of this world mentally by assuming that I am there and then viewing the world from that assumption, rather than thinking of that state. Standing here, if I desire to be elsewhere, though at the moment my reason tells me I can’t afford it, my senses tell me I haven’t the time—you’re committed, you’ll be here next Friday, you couldn’t get there and back—so here you are, you’re stuck. But I desire to be elsewhere. So reason and my senses deny that I could because I just shouldn’t be there. But standing here, let me now assume that I am where I would like to be, and then let me mentally view the world from that assumption as though it were true, just as though it were true. Well, I know from my own experience that if I dare to do it, that everything in this world that would tie me here, there will be a reshuffling of the events of life and compel the journey on my part. And it would...that assumption of mine would build a bridge of incidents across which I would move to the fulfillment of that state, and no power in the world could stop it. I would walk across a series of events. From the very moment that I do it, things would happen to compel me to go and I physically as a man could not resist it. Things would happen to compel the journey if I dare to assume that I am elsewhere while physically I am really here. * * *