2/28/69

Those whom a vision has changed must walk by faith through the mire of doubt. People will say, “Don’t you believe that Jesus existed and that he rose from the dead and, therefore, that he exists?” And you answer yes. Well, it seems to satisfy them that he existed. It’s like my wife saying to me “Do you believe in me?” and I answer yes, I believe that you exist. Is that what she intended that I believe that she exists, or that I trust her, that I believe in her to the point where I trust her? For that is what we are called upon in scripture to do, to believe in Jesus, to believe in the one who is sent.

So we are told, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God? And he answered, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (Jn. 6:29). That’s all that you have to do…salvation to everyone who believes in him. There is no aristocracy of privilege, none whatsoever. And to believe that he existed and that he exists means nothing. Can I believe in him? Well, how do I go about believing in him? If I trust him, I will trust the story that he tells, for he tells us he was sent. Everyone who is sent is Jesus and Jesus is the sender. We are called from this world here where the world is dead. We do not volunteer and we do not in any way choose the task. We are selected and we are called; and when we are called we are incorporated into the Lord, the risen Lord, and then we are sent. But if we are sent we are the one who sent us: for “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” I am one with the being who called me after I am incorporated into his being. Then you come and you tell…what story did you tell? That you have a large family of brothers and sisters? No. Do you tell of any home that you built? No. For it is said of him when he entered the synagogue and began to teach, they wondered how can he have such learning? For is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Jose and Simon and Judas and his sisters (its plural) and are they not with us this day? Here is a large family…and he has no learning, so how does he do it? Now he tells them he was sent to do a work. What work did he come to do? There’s no record that he built a home or repaired a house. He is called a carpenter in the 6th chapter of Mark, and here all the brothers are named, at least four of them are named, and the sisters, at least it’s plural…so how many…at least two. So here is a large family.

Well, what did he come to do? He said, “I have come to fulfill scripture. And then, beginning with Moses and the law, and all the prophets and the Psalms, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” He didn’t realize until then that the whole thing was about himself. He had first to be called…a man just like us, a man in a large family, a normal man, who had a trade, they called him a carpenter. He is called and incorporated into the man, the risen man, and then sent. And he tells you, I am one with the one who sent me. I can’t divorce myself from that man who incorporated me into his being, and if you see me you see him who sent me. Now what did he send me to tell you? To tell you what I will now experience; and if you believe what I tell you, then all that I do you will do…if you believe me. But if you do not believe me, you will not do the things that I am telling you about.

So here, he who believes me will do all the works that I do and if he does not believe me he will not do them, and there is no other way to salvation. Unless these things unfold in him he will never depart from the world of death into the world of life. In Adam all die; in this man of which I speak all are made alive. So he made me alive in him and then sent me. The need was great to send me to tell you exactly what I experience and to tell you that if you believe my experiences that you will have them. If you have them then you are saved; you leave the world of death and enter the world of life. It doesn’t make sense, but it is the incredible story that man is called upon to believe. Now he tells us, in spite of the fact that you know my parents…you say I am the son of Joseph, son of Mary, and you name my brothers, you mention sisters, mention my trade…and yet I tell you from now on I am not of this world. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I am from above; you are from below. But if you’ll believe me, you too will be born from above and then you will not be of this world. You will actually be an entirely different being living in an entirely different world. But you cannot unless you hear my story and believe it.

Well, some believed him and the majority rejected him. He argued from scripture to point out what had happened to him, to show in scripture that he was the fulfillment of scripture. We read the story in the 16th of Acts. It’s the story of one called Paul. First, there was a slave girl and she had the spirit of divination, and being a slave she was making a lot of money for her owners as a soothsayer. As Paul came by with his associates, she being a diviner said, “These men are proclaiming the way of salvation,” and she followed them for days proclaiming that these know the way of salvation. Then came the keeper of the jail, the guard, and he said to these men, “What must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you’ll be saved.” Believe in a man…as I would say to my wife, yes, I believe that you exist, is that believing? The Lord Jesus is only a pattern. It’s the pattern. Well, the pattern gets encrusted with barnacles over the years and he calls one and sends that one into the world, having incorporated that one into himself, to scrape off the barnacles by telling exactly the path of salvation…how it happened to him.

So he goes and he tells it. You might think, after all, what does it matter, three billion people in the world and he tells it to what, a few dozen, a few hundred? Well, that’s all you need to start it. You tell it to the few dozen or the few hundred or a few thousand, and a percentage, a remnant will believe it. That’s all that you need. Others will reject it plus the billions who didn’t hear it when you walked among them. So, as they hear it, they believe it, and then it happens in them, and it spreads once more until once more it’s organized. As it becomes organized, it grows its barnacles, because those without vision will organize it and make a business out of it. Once more it becomes a tradition without the Spirit.

So he called me in 1929. I didn’t volunteer. Standing in the presence of the risen Lord who is nothing but love, infinite love, he incorporated me into his body and then sent me. Sending me out of his body he sent himself, because I am one with the body. There’s only one body, there’s only one Spirit, there’s only one Lord (Eph.4:4). But I had to be clothed in a garment that is fragile to talk to those who are equally fragile. They, knowing my biological background, knowing my large family, the limitations of that family; the limitations of my background in every sense of the word questioned against their background which is traditional and it doesn’t fit; and so they reject it. A few will go outside of what they have heard and they will accept it; and to that remnant it happens…those who will believe in him. So, what must I do to be doing the work of God? Believe in him whom he has sent. I tell you, he has sent me. You may or may not believe it, that’s your privilege. But I who have the vision, who had the experience and it so changed me that I must now walk by faith in this vision and keep this divine vision in spite of all the troubles of the world; and walk through the mire of doubt…even if the doubt comes from the most intimate circle, which is perfectly all right.

So, one is sent. He’s first called, incorporated, and then sent. And that goes on eternally until all are redeemed, not one will be lost, not one. So, “As in Adam all die, so also by Christ shall all be made alive” (1Cor.1:22). But this Christ is a pattern of the eternal purpose of God. And there’s only one way to escape from this world. There aren’t two ways; there’s one way: you must be born from above. That is essential. You must discover the fatherhood of God and that you are he. Your body must be torn from top to bottom and you must ascend into heaven and reverberate it. You must have the symbol of the Holy Spirit descend upon you and smother you with love. And you tell that story. It’s in scripture. And they will say, “But it happened and I know I believe in the one who existed.” You say, it’s not that at all…that is only a pattern. I have come to renew the pattern. Your belief that Jesus Christ existed is not your belief in him. He is only a pattern of salvation, that’s all that he is.

So he calls another after the barnacles have again encrusted the ship. Then he comes and he tries to scrape them off by retelling the story, the same story, as something that he himself has experienced. Beginning with your most intimate circle, your family, they say, “But Neville, you mean you don’t believe in Jesus Christ?” I said, I do believe in Jesus Christ…far more than you do. “You couldn’t because you don’t talk that way. Don’t you believe he existed?” I said, what does that matter? So he existed and he rose, therefore he exists, but that is not believing in Jesus Christ. To believe in Jesus Christ you believe in the pattern. He is the pattern man. So if you believe in a man…so you believe in Neville…what does it matter if you believe in Neville? Neville means nothing. If Neville was called and incorporated into the living being, who is a pattern of salvation, and then sent, he comes bearing the pattern and the pattern is within him. Then in an interval of time—in my case thirty years—then it erupted, the whole thing erupted within me, and it’s then that you tell the story.

So he began his ministry when he was about thirty years of age. It doesn’t mean thirty years physically; he’s not speaking of the biological man. From that moment after he was incorporated, thirty years later he is then qualified by the eruption to tell what is happening in him. Then he actually uses scripture and so all of his arguments are based upon scripture. And some believed based upon it, they can see it; and others cannot see it because they’ve been so conditioned that they can’t quite relate his experiences to that of scripture. You mean to tell me that when it is said in Zechariah that the Mount of Olives was split from top to bottom, and then one moved north and the other side moved south, leaving a huge, big valley, that that is related to your body when you were split from top to bottom and one side moved one way and one side moved the other, leaving an interval of about six inches…and that is related to the Mount of Olives? And you say yes…it is told in this symbolic manner, all this is metaphor…but you are the reality. And so they use the Mt. of Olives…but you are the Mt. of Olives. You are everything in scripture…that splitting was yourself. You mean to tell me that one who lived unnumbered years before you—at least a thousand years before you, if I take it in a secular manner as history—that all of a sudden he who lived 1000 years before you called you Father? And you say yes he did, he called me Father. Therefore is it not said in scripture that he just called me in Spirit, the Lord? And I point out the passage of scripture where I met him, I found him, and he told me who I was by calling me by my true name.

Some will believe it; the majority will deny it and think it’s a huge strange fantasy. But you still through the mire of doubt walk and you tell the story. You mean that you born of your mother…we know your mother and we know your father, his name was Joseph and your mother’s name was Wilhelmina, and you have so many brothers and one sister. We know your whole background that you had nothing, but nothing, no educational background, no financial background, nothing. And you dare to tell me these things happened in you when he could have easily called a financial giant or intellectual giant or some other giant judged by human standards…and he called you? I said, But he called me in the Spirit, he didn’t call me in the flesh. I was not initiated in the flesh. I was sound asleep on my bed when I was taken in Spirit. So I was called in Spirit and I met him in Spirit and in truth. So I was called in Spirit. Then having been incorporated into his body which seemed to me solidly real…but it must have been Spirit. So when I came back into the garment I left on the bed, it was in that that I came back and in that I unfolded all that he incorporated into me…for that was his plan of salvation.

So I tell you now that this is the only way that man ever departs from the world of death, and he departs by simply believing the story. You don’t believe that Neville existed, you don’t believe in Neville as a man. He’s frail, subject to all the weaknesses of the flesh, and everything in the world that man is heir to he is heir to it. But believe what he experienced. Do you believe it? So he takes scripture and he simply unfolds it before you and shows you where the experience that he has had is paralleled here. It was all foretold. And then you either believe it or you don’t believe it. He repeats it over and over in the hope that those who hear him will believe it.

So in the story it ties the gospel to the reality. We find that in the Book of Acts. It was once part of the Book of Luke, but then it’s detached and put into the chronological picture as the fifth book, when really it is part of the Book of Luke. But it’s divided for a purpose. Then you find that the story of Jesus (which is the pattern man) is now emptied into that of the apostles. The apostle is one who is sent, and that’s the story of the ones who are sent to tell exactly how it happened.

Now, I do not know in any part of scripture where it is told as graphically as I have told you. I can go back and take the related passages in the Old Testament. “Is it possible,” he said, “Can a man bear a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands pulling himself out of himself just like a woman in labor? Why has every face turned pale?” (Jer. 30:6). Well, I form within myself a child if I’m a woman. Well, is it not part of my body? So then I in labor then pull out of my body…for that’s what primitive women did. There were no hospitals where you put them into a twilight sleep and then brought about the delivery. In the field while they were working they stopped for a moment and brought about the delivery by pulling out of themselves what they had formed within themselves. So, it seemed that a man is pulling out of himself his own being: “Why do I see every man pulling himself out of himself?” Well, you do, you pull yourself right out of yourself. And there you are fulfilling scripture.

Then comes, he has given us a child: “To us a child is born, to us a son is given” (Is. 9:6). And then this follows this picture at the same moment, the very same night. You go back and you point out to everyone who will listen to you this passage of scripture foreshadowing this event. Some believe it; the majority will deny it and they will not believe it. Then you go on to the next, the 89th Psalm, and then you find that you are fulfilling scripture. He called me Father. Who called me Father? The one who stands before me and he’s David. But he preceded you by a thousand years and today in the 20th Century by 2,400 years. But he did call me Father. Then at that moment I knew he was telling me the truth because I knew it, and there was no uncertainty when it came to this relationship.

So here, I am telling you what scripture foretold and I have experienced scripture. Must that actually take place for man to depart this world? Yes it must take place. Well then, what must I do to bring it about?—only believe it. You don’t do anything in this world outside of believing it. I don’t care what you are…tonight if you are in this world a thief, if that is your profession; if tonight in this world you are an actor playing all kinds of parts on the outside; if you are anything in this world, I don’t care what it is, that is not important. You heard the story and did you believe it? If you believed it and really believed it and set your hope fully upon having these experiences, then your salvation is assured. Eventually everyone is going to believe it; but by denying it and rejecting it they are delaying it. They delay the birth; the birth comes only after acceptance of the story of the one who was sent.

The one who was sent did not choose to be sent. He was called and he had no, well, what can I say, the night I fell asleep I would be the last person in the world that would have chosen myself as one worthy to be sent, one worthy to be called…that I would be called into the presence of the risen Lord. For are we not told that the pure in heart will see God? Well, I certainly did not feel myself pure in heart. I could not in the wildest stretch of the Imagination judge myself as one worthy to stand in the presence of God if to stand in his presence means that I am pure in heart. For here, I was having conflicts in my life with a wife from whom I was separated and my little boy moving back and forth between us and the conflicts that go with all these silly little things. I could never have judged myself worthy if to be pure in heart meant what the world thinks it is. Well, it isn’t that at all. God sees the heart, he sees motives; he doesn’t see the outer picture; he sees motive behind the act. Was it done in love or was it done to get even with another? Did you do it to hurt or did you really do it because you love? He sees that…he doesn’t see the outer picture at all.

So, in ’29 when I was called, judging superficially I could never have put myself up as one worthy of being called. But I was called. Then for thirty years you go through the picture and you’re teaching only a law because you do not know the Promise. It’s there in scripture but you don’t know it. Then suddenly one day thirty years later the Promise erupts within you. You can do nothing but think about it and talk about it and tell it. Now you are the one sent. They know your background, your genealogy; you’re biological set up—your father, your mother, your brothers, your sister—everything about you, your lack of education. And here, it’s all recorded in scripture. But it’s just about that that he calls…and then you tell it. Beginning with your own family they reject it, reject it 100 percent.

The one who came closest to it was my own father. In my discussion at home one day with a minister and the minister could not answer my question and could not for one moment throw any light on what I’m talking about, my father said to me, “Why son, you must be an apostle.” Well, mother felt it in her womb when I was coming into this world, but she had no assurance of it because I became a dancer. Well, that was not what she thought. She thought I would be a minister in the Anglican Church…but certainly not in the theater. That would be so in conflict with what she believed I was sent to do…if I was sent to do anything. So, all these conflicts, and the closest to what I am doing about belief was my father…and it only lasted for a moment, just that moment of discussion with the minister.

But I’ll tell you this night this is the only way of salvation. You don’t believe in Neville…forget Neville. I’ll go out with you any night and keep pace with you drink for drink and thoroughly enjoy it, every one. Eat with anyone and no food is distasteful to me love it all, no matter what it is, I take anything. I find nothing to condemn. And so because I can’t condemn any being in this world for what part they’re playing, well then, that is not discriminating enough. Well, in spite of all that, and I admit to all these weaknesses of the human flesh, he called me, sent me, and I didn’t know for what purpose. But I realize now it was after his message erupted within me; then to tell it because you refresh the atmosphere. You simply clean it up after all the centuries of misunderstanding of the Christian mystery. For Christianity is only the fulfillment of Judaism. It’s been fulfilled. And we are gathered one by one into that one man. We are that man when we are incorporated into that man…that is being “one in Christ”…Christ being the resurrected. Jesus is the pattern.

So, everyone who is sent is Jesus. I don’t care what name you bear on earth, you are then Jesus, and you’ll play the part. You tell it just as it happened to you. Don’t elaborate, don’t embellish it, tell it just as it is. Tell them this much that unless they believe it they will not depart. If they do not believe that it’s going to happen to them and they believe only that he existed, well then, let them believe he existed. Just like saying to my wife, “Yes Bill, I believe you exist.” What an insult! Do I trust her? Will I trust her with everything that I have in this world? Will I trust her completely? I do…well then, I believe in her. Now, a man tells you a story and he tells you the story of salvation as he has experienced it, do you believe in him? Forget the man…tomorrow you may read in the paper where he’s guilty of something else that is in conflict with what he has told you, but do you believe his story? If you believe his story, then you believe in him, believe in him implicitly. All right then forget all that you hear about the man.

Someone said to me, “When I told the story about your experiences, I don’t know why I said it but I said you know he is divorced and remarried.” Then the book was closed instantly. The book became a closed book. She couldn’t hear anything good about me because I’m divorced, so that closed everything. So she could not accept the story that I was called, incorporated into the body of God, and sent to tell what’s going to happen within me when it happened. And then it took thirty years for maturity, and then it erupted, and then I began to tell it. She heard the telling of it, but when she heard I was divorced, she saw the outer man who could not adjust himself to married life with a certain person and they got a divorce. And that was the end in her world of anything to believe in me. She’ll go right around the corner and believe that if you eat corn only you’ll be satisfied and you’ll be saved, because he isn’t divorced…or she who told the story of eating corn is not divorced. So they’ll eat corn from now ‘til the ends of days and they will not depart from this world of death.

You can do anything in this world as the part calls for it, but believe the story. If you believe the story I don’t care what you have done and what you’re doing, if you believe the story and set your hope fully upon that grace that is coming to you, it will erupt within you. He will call you because he sees your belief, he sees your heart, and you are capable of believing the incredible story; for there’s nothing in this world more incredible than the story of Christ, nothing. You mean that I born of this flesh and blood…and yet, you ask the man who will bring me out of this mother’s womb to explain how the bones grew in my mother’s womb, and he can’t tell you how they were covered with flesh. Oh, he will give you 1,001 reasons on how these things happen, but he doesn’t know a thing about how the bones grow in the womb of woman. As you’re told in the Books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs “Who knows how the bones grow in the womb of woman?” Ask them how a piece of bone, which is considered an inanimate and a dead object, how it grows. How does it grow and how does it cover itself with flesh and all the things that make it alive in the world? They do not know.

Now, you can tell them in spite of that miracle, and it is a miracle, there’s another birth…something far, far greater than that. That something comes out of you that no one sees and yet it is so real. It is God coming out of you. He is born out of this thing that is a thing of death. They can’t grasp that so they can’t grasp the other. But I tell you only to believe it; you don’t have to understand it. It doesn’t call for any understanding on your part how it happens. All it calls for is to believe it. “So what must I do to be doing the works of God? Believe in him whom he has sent” (Jn.6:28). “Now what must I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus and you’ll be saved.” In other words, believe in the pattern, believe in the story that he has told you. If you believe in the story that he has told you, go about your business and try to live fully in this world. I don’t care what it is, live fully. Enjoy life! Enjoy everything!

I saw a lady today who went to Barbados just for a short trip. She so loved it she got off the boat, flew back into Barbados to spend an extra week just to see the place that I told her about when I first spoke to her in Detroit many years ago. She came to Minneapolis to attend my classes. I told the story of my brother Victor visualizing a building that was not ours as though it were, and how in time we owned the building, and then from then on we became a very important business operation in Barbados. So she got off the boat as it went south of Barbados and flew back to Barbados and spent a week to meet the family, to see the building, and to ask all these questions. She met Victor and met my family. So she came today to call on me and said “I’ll tell you now I saw the building.” It’s gone now. We sold it to a bank, the Bank of Nova Scotia. They demolished the building and built a modern building in its place. So she saw where it was and met the family…and knows the truth of what I said. Then she said, “You know, when I heard you in Detroit and followed you to Minneapolis and took your classes, we had nothing”—speaking of her husband and herself—“but I believed you and so I began to put it into practice.”

Well, it was a very sad story concerning her husband. He departed this world. He took his own life after spending many years in different mental hospitals. He always threatened that he would do it, and finally after nineteen years he did, going from one place to the other…thirteen of these hospitals. And she was blaming herself, wondering if she had failed and where did she fail? But the point of this…her brother who was a great business man, very thrifty, frugal, denying himself and living frugally, he died. Three weeks later his wife died and the only surviving relative was this sister. So now she has all that it takes to live lusciously, which was her dream. She assumed that she had it, not knowing where it would come from. She hadn’t the slightest idea where one nickel ever would come from. It wouldn’t come from her husband since he was always in a mental hospital, thirteen different ones. She didn’t have it. She became distraught; she despaired because all the money which they didn’t have was going out to take care of a mental case. Finally, about a year ago, he took care of that by departing this world through his own effort. Meanwhile, the brother dies and his wife three weeks later dies, and then the entire estate after all of his thrift goes to the sister. Now she can take these trips around the world and keep on going all the time. It makes no difference because the money is there.

So I tell you, this doesn’t fail you on this level, this world of Caesar, and it will not fail you in the world of God if you believe the story. But you must believe both stories. If I tell you an assumption though false if persisted in will harden into fact that will prove itself in the world of Caesar as it did in her case. But now I tell you an incredible story that in you one day you’re going to awaken in your skull to find the whole thing was really a grave, a sepulcher. Then all of a sudden you awake within it and then you come out. Then the birth as described in scripture is right before you and you are the one spoken of. I tell you the entire story and can you believe that as you believe an assumption though false will harden into fact? If you believe one, try after it proves itself in performance to believe the other. For unless you believe both you can’t prove both. If you believe one in the world of Caesar, oh, you’ll have the money…she has the money tonight, all that it takes…but she has to believe the other to depart from the world of Caesar.

Well, she doesn’t need the money for the simple reason the earth is hers and all within it. When you depart from this world, you’re God, and being God everything is yours. As he said, “If I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you, for the cattle on a thousand hills are mine. And were I hungry I would slay and eat” (Ps.50:10, 12). Why would I ask permission of anyone to eat that which is mine? So the world is yours when you are incorporated into the body of God. And having told the story, you depart this world to return unto the Father which is yourself…the body of the risen Lord where everything is yours. But in this world where you don’t know it’s all yours then apply the law, which is the law of assumption: I will assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. All right, will it work?

This lady came today…I did not remember her. I don’t see people at home. I gave it up when I came from New York because it was tiring as I told her. But she said, I have a message from your family in Barbados. Well, naturally that’s going to trigger something. She wants to bring a message from my brother Victor and my brother Joe, so I said all right, I’ll see you at 2:00. And to show you how tiring these things are she came at two, a little bit before two, and we discussed until quarter of three. Then I said, “May I call you a cab?” I called a cab and at 4:30 there’s no cab. They said the cab will be there any minute now, but it’s raining so no cab came. She felt embarrassed knowing that she had taken up all this time and she said, “I think I’ll walk to the corner.” I said, ‘Well you’re living at the Beverly Wilshire? Walk to the corner, go into the restaurant, the Cock and Bull, and because it’s a very prominent restaurant the cabs will come there. If one is called at that place, they will come.” So she walked up at 4:30 and she came at two. So you see why I don’t like these private interviews. It’s a very tiring thing, not only in time but in concentration when you concentrate on their problem and try to analyze it and to bring forth an answer for it.

But I tell you, just as on this level it works, it works on the other. You have to believe it on this level and apply it; you have to believe it on the higher level. So what must I do to be saved?—believe in the Lord Jesus. Well, how do I believe in him, that he existed? No. You can believe as millions of Christians believe that he existed, and they will go to bat to prove that he existed. No. That’s not believing in Jesus: believe his message, the incredible message that he though born of flesh and blood and having four brothers (and they name the four brothers) and having sisters and having a family (they named the father and the mother), a normal person. He was a carpenter as named in the 6th chapter of Mark (verse 3). Then he tells you he wasn’t this at all. He had a second birth and he is the man of the second birth, he is the new man. That he is not the man that you know, he is an entirely different being. “And this is what happened to me,” said he, “and now do you believe it?” Well, if you believe it then that’s how you are saved. If you don’t believe it, keep going, just keep going in the world with all the blows round about you.

So the hundreds of millions of those who call themselves Christians believe in the existence of Jesus, but they don’t believe in Jesus. If they believed in him, they’d believe his story. And we are told, “Unless you be born from above you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven” (Jn.3:3). Now, I’ve told you in the most graphic form how it happens. I’ve recorded it in the book Resurrection exactly how it happens. Just as you’re told in scripture it takes 1260 days (Rev.11:3); that’s exactly the length of time that it took me from the first to the end. So the story is true. I have come to bear witness to it. So he who incorporated me sent me, and he who sent me is with me. So whoever sees me sees him who sent me. But you don’t see him, the one who sent me by seeing the outer man. It’s only the inner man that is the likeness and the very being of the one who sent me, for he is the inner being.

Now let us go into the Silence.

* * *

Q: What is the spiritual meaning of the term “carpenter”?

A: You know, Jack, I do not really know other than the carpenter is a builder. But I do not actually as I’ve never looked it up in the Concordance. Joseph was a carpenter. It is said in scripture, “Is he not the carpenter’s son?” Well, in those days a man followed his father’s trade, and so in the Book of Mark, “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary?” But it is said in other passages in scripture, “Is he not the carpenter’s son?” So Joseph was called the carpenter and his son was called the carpenter. Well, he’s a builder, an architect. But not a thing is mentioned in scripture concerning the appearance of Jesus, his physical appearance, or any physical accomplishment…like the building or repairing of a home. That was simply called a trade. But regardless of what trade one has in this world it would be the carpenter. I’m building…if I only bring home a dollar…I’m building something. So we are the carpenters of scripture in that sense.

But I do not know, Jack. Honestly I’ve never looked up the word “carpenter” in the Concordance for its definition. So I would just have to speculate. He is called the carpenter and his father is called the carpenter. But his brothers are named—James, Jose, Simon and Judas, and the sister is in the plural, “his sisters are with us today.” There were at least seven in the family, a normal family, and they knew this man had no educational background…“How does he have his learning?” Then he begins to explain scripture because he is having the experiences of scripture and no matter what tradition has to tell them he is telling them the truth of scripture, rather than what tradition has. A man without the experience is leading us to believe all kinds of things on the outside, which are not so at all.

Like our churches taking a piece of cloth and calling it the cloth that he wore on the cross…and there was no cross. If you take this one simple statement in the Book of Romans: “If we have been united with him in a death like his, surely we shall be united with him in a resurrection like his” (6:5). So all of us were in that act of crucifixion and where was the crucifixion? This is the only crucified state in the world: when I entered this body. And they dare to tell me that a piece of cloth was the cloth that he wore when he was on the cross? There was no cross outside of this. The pieces of wood where this was the cross, pieces of cloth, this was the robe that they fought over, and this isn’t so at all. To this day there are hundreds of millions of people who believe it when they look at a piece of cloth. They’ve just discovered that the chair on which Peter sat wasn’t so at all, unless Peter lived at least 1,400 years because it isn’t older than that. Yet for centuries they’ve shown this stupid thing saying this is Peter’s chair where he sat. Now that we have a way of discovering the age of a thing, we know it isn’t so at all. But people go blindly on, forget it, and still accept the stupid traditional concept that is completely wrong.

But I will look up the word carpenter. I have my concordances at home, but I’ve never really looked it up. I should take every word as I read it and look it up. But I didn’t look up carpenter.

Are there any other questions, please? Well, if there aren’t any…Good night.

Main photo: Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives (David Roberts, 1839)