WE WANT TO PRESENT THIS MESSAGE TO YOU IN A WAY THAT WILL SETTLE ONCE AND FOR ALL TIME, THE QUESTION OF WHAT THE IMAGE ADAM WAS CREATED IN, WAS.

SOME PEOPLE THINK ONLY OF THE BODY OF FLESH GIVEN TO ADAM, WHEN THEY READ GENESIS 1:26, WHEN ACTUALLY THERE WAS NO FLESH EVEN IN THE PICTURE AT THE TIME GOD CREATED ADAM, AND GAVE HIM THE COMMISSION TO BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY, AND REPLENISH THE EARTH. GOD CREATED A SPIRIT BEING THEN, AND GAVE HIM A BODY OF FLESH LATER, WHEN IT WAS TIME FOR HIM TO START FULFILLING THAT COMMISSION.

FOLLOW MY THOUGHT, AND YOU WILL HAVE TO AGREE THAT THERE WAS NO FLESH INVOLVED IN THAT IMAGE; SO LET US BEGIN BY READING A SCRIPTURE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

WHAT ABOUT OUR IMAGE?

We will begin by reading verses 28 & 29, from the 8^th chapter of Romans; and we want to emphasize the fact that the apostle Paul was writing this to Christians in Rome. Notice how he begins, “And we know.” You have to be a child of God to understand these two verses. An unbelieving, unsaved person can read it, but they are not acquainted with its contents and would not know how to accept the truth of it, when many times the same disasters or trials or tribulations or such like would befall them, as it would the child of God. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” Nothing ever happens to you or me by mere chance. I say that to every true child of God. If you were to leave here after service, (I do not want to say this for anyone to let their mind dwell on it, but to make a point) and some drunk was to run into you and tear up your nice shiny new car, it is going to shock you, but remember, God already knew all about it. We many times will say, But why? There are some things in the plan of God, you do not ask Him why. You just have to realize that He is going to use it to accomplish something that is beneficial to your inner being. “To them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” This lets us know God has a purpose and plan, and verse 29 reaches back and enlarges on it, because it brings us in relationship with the mind of God. “For whom He did foreknow, (we have got to accept the fact also, the great deity mind of God is omniscient. It knows all things.) He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He, meaning His Son, might be the first born among many brethren,” we then should understand why it is described in the scriptures that Jesus is the beginning of the creation of God. However contrary to the trinitarian view, Jesus is not the beginning of the creation of the universe. He could not be the Creator of the universe and take a secondary position under the headship of God. What does it tell you in 1^st Corinthians? That God is the head of Christ. When it puts God in that relationship, it means that He is supreme in the universe, but in being supreme in the universe there is something God, Jehovah, the Elohim, had in mind here on earth. Now with this thought in mind, we are dealing with this word, and God’s plan was, and His purpose was, that you and I might be conformed to the image of His Son: and if He is the firstborn, to be recognized as the firstborn among many brethren, then you have got to begin to see that Jesus was the beginning of God’s new family. That is what it all sums up to be, the beginning of God’s new family. He has already got a family here, of created sons and daughters. But look what a shape they are in. Look at us, without Jesus. We are a hopeless, helpless bunch of human beings. Just look at the world today. It sure isn’t getting any better. Therefore we want to deal with the thought, “image” in this message. What does this word image mean? And that we are to be conformed to the image of His Son? This will take us back to Genesis 1:26, because we have got to start out where the word “image” first comes into the picture. We can see in the first verses leading up to this, that God is already dealing with the planet earth, bringing it out of that chaotic judged state it has been in, and we cannot help but understand, this is not the beginning of the existence of the planet; it is the beginning of God bringing it back into a relationship for a future purpose of His. Now He comes to this point, and verse 26 reads like this, and this is where the Trinitarians go. “And God said, let us,” if you notice Bibles, they will carry a footnote or something, and say the word us is a plural word, describing or relating to the trinity being of God. But brothers and sisters, as I have said, if we were to take a Trinitarian’s viewpoint, the way they bring it out, they say, well we teach there is one god, but He is manifested in three distinct persons, each equal in authority, working in complete harmony, or unity, with each other. Brothers and sisters, if that is how the eternal God exists in three persons, and we are made in the image of that, Where are my other two parts? You only see one creature standing here. All of this goes to prove, a triune God and a triune person can take you two different directions. We know we are a triune being. But when we look at ourselves, we can see that we are a complete “one” manifested person. It means that, the very life that we are, had to come from God. But what makes that a distinct individual, apart from others? It is that God incorporated into that spirit, certain traits, you can call it attributes, characteristics, describe it as you will. When you sum it all up, that is what we would call the soul of man. That gives him his individuality. Incorporated within that is the expressions of the person, as the spirit being they are, but also within that are your five senses. They are in the soul, not in the flesh. But as they are in the soul, those senses are definitely designed by the Creator, so that once it is put in a fleshly tabernacle, or body, then through those senses is how the inner being works to express it’s self through the earthly vessel, to communicate, to know, to recognize it’s outer world. If you did not have the sense of feel, you and I might walk right straight into a flame of fire, but the sense of feel is there as a protection device. If we did not have the sense of hearing, we might walk right straight out into the front of a terrible object coming at a terrific speed, making a lot of noise, but if we didn’t hear something, we could sure be in a lot of trouble. The same way with taste. What causes some people to like some things more than others? We can say it is according to their taste buds. But I cannot dwell too long on this, only to say, the soul is definitely what makes you different from the person sitting beside you. When God said let us make man, we are going to have to see first the origin of what man is to come from. Well we believe that God is our Heavenly Father. That means He is our Creator. He is the one that put us here by a law of creation, or reproduction. Therefore that life has definitely got to come from God, for when the apostle Paul spoke to the Greeks on Mars’ Hill, he said, I passed by this day, your place of devotions, and I see you have a god for everything. But I noticed a sign there to the unknown god. That is your way of saying, just in case there is one that we do not know about, then Paul says, That is the one I want to talk to you about. And as he continued he said, “For in him we live and move and have our being,” meaning our existence. The fact that we are knowledgeable, conscious of ourselves, is the fact that our spirit life came from a Creator. We might say this, The spirit of life of every animal in the animal kingdom came from God. But to say that the animal is knowledgeable of the Creator in the sense that you and I are, it is not necessary for us to even see it in that light. But now as God said, “Let us make man after our likeness,” brothers and sisters, if we can look at this with honesty, we can see this planet earth was populated by an ancient prehistoric realm of animal life, and there were creatures here at one time that bore structure, physically structured, had no doubt similarities, much physical likeness to you and me, they were not an offspring of God. God had no reason to resurrect them, or deal with them in any way of salvation. I think as we would go on with this message, we will begin to realize that the Bible contains truth, and that the only people that will ever see it is real spiritual born again men and women, that become acquainted with it’s author. Once they become acquainted with its author, then after awhile as their spiritual mind begins to grow in the knowledge of God and His plan of salvation, the word begins to take on a greater meaning, because it is then that between the lines we begin to see things. He did it that way to keep the wise and prudent from understanding. He and He alone is the architect and designer. But we have got to accept the fact, He has got another element of beings there in His presence, working and assisting Him, to say this, this does not take a thing away from God. When we read in Hebrews how Paul taught, and Paul describes something like this, saying, “Who made His angels ministering spirits, and His ministers, (meaning His earthly messengers) a flame of fire.” Paul describes the angels then as ministering spirits sent forth to them that shall be heirs of salvation. It is not that God has to have help. He is everywhere. If He is omnipotent, then we are dealing with a source of power that is unlimited in what He can do. But we find this also, God is a God that wants to share Himself with something else, and that something else is to take whatever is allotted, or granted, or given to them, and working in harmony with God, never seeking to put forth their own purpose, thought, idea, or such, but always seeking to carry out the will of God the Creator, the designer. So God is speaking here at the beginning of our origin; saying, Let us make men after our image. But if we are made in the image of a triune God, then God made a mistake. Instead of making us a triune being, like, our spirit would have to be a person one place, our soul would have to be a person in another place, and our body another person down here. That is what trinity teaching gets you into. It is true we are spirit, soul and body, but it takes all three to make up the one complete person that we definitely are. Therefore when He said, Let us, then this one omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God was saying to the angelic family, Now we will make man in our image and after our likeness. This means that this man, who is made in the image of God, is going to be a different creature than what is already designed, as we will see in the previous verses here, of the fowl life, or the marine life, or the animal life that god has said to let the earth bring forth. This lets me know, this man made in the image of God, is not going to be something just for animal life to be expressed on earth. He is definitely going to be a being that is to have characteristics of God and God is going to give him authority and power, that he, being created after His image and likeness, will literally be an offspring of God on earth.

IMAGE EXPLAINED

Now let us read Genesis 1:26. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them,” notice how He puts man in the plural. This goes to show, it was already in the mind of God that there is definitely designed to be a multiple of men, eventually, on this planet. Not just one. We know that when God acted to bring forth the first one described here, you could not say, well “them” are. There was only one man. Notice though, “And let them have dominion (authority) over the fish of the se, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth.” But show how or other, man, in the natural way of looking at things, has really just now come in contact with how man was to have real dominion and authority over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and over every beast and creeping thing. Now why is this? It is all because of God’s mind, and plan, this man that He is creating, is going to have something inside him, that is going to tell him how to express this authority, and to cause the animal kingdom to be subject to him. Remember, we are dealing with the thought, “Image.” Therefore at this point, I must read this, because we know that in the plan of salvation, you and I are to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Why? Because He is the beginning of, or the firstborn among many brethren, so let us see what the definition of image is. “To imitate.” To imitate, you have to act like something that has already portrayed itself, and whatever it is like, that is already established. Therefore we can say this, God always was, He always is supreme, He is always present and so forth. Another definition is, a representation of a person. Now brothers and sisters, when I looked at these words, it was then that I began to realize, no wonder God, in the Old Testament, established through natural ceremonial observances, certain types by how it was to be done. All of these types were pointing to future tense, to God’s finished work that would be accomplished through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It also gives the word embodiment, and another definition of image is, a portrait, or a reflect. When you go before a mirror, and you see something standing there, that is not you. This is why, over in the Arab world, the Moslem world, when you get around some of those Bedouins, and try to take their picture, you have trouble. They will almost chase you down and take your camera away from you. Do you know why? Because they say, that the thing captures their soul. Well we know good and well it does not, nevertheless, people that still live and exist in primitive ways of thinking, can devise a lot of ideas. What does a camera do? A camera is an instrument that has lenses, and your image is drawn into those lenses, and that image, we will say, is cast on a certain type of chemical substance. A certain amount of light is used, and then it truly captures your shape, the color of your eyes, and all of that; but you are not in the camera. That is just an image of you, that is being captured and put there. Therefore this is a definition of what we are looking at then. When we read where God has said, in the 26^th verse, Let us make man in our image and likeness, then in the original plan, God designed and made his first man to reflect, to express traits, characteristics, and to act like God. No it is not God Himself; but it is a reflection of certain attributes of God, given true individuality. Because God has an omniscient mind, He gives to his offspring a certain amount of intelligence, so that he can think in the likeness of God. We must try to see this man in his original state. He definitely was created in the image and likeness of his Creator. God designed him to have a future role here on this earth. Of course verse 27 lets us know who the designer is. Verse 27 speaks, bypassing the helpers, or assistants, saying, “So God, (in the singular) created man, in His own image.” Because it is His power, it is His choice, it is His decision. He is the one that designed it. The whole plan of the creating of this earth man, whatever the angels did to carry it out, keep in mind, it was not of their choice to do it. It was the choice, the decision of God that it should be done. When it was actually administered, and by whatever means, then angels definitely had a part of it, even though it just says, “So God created man, in His own (personal) image.” In His image, His likeness, His characteristics, His attributes, or call it what you will, man was created in the image of God. “God created He Him, male and female created He them.” We know that at that time, the physical body was not yet in the picture. Man was a spirit being; this is why we have to see the spirit, the soul, the life of the individual, before it comes to an earthly body, for that is the part that is made in the image and likeness of God. He was aware of his existence, and aware of his individuality, and conscious of the reason why he was put into existence. Somehow or other, he already had the knowledge of certain things to carry out. But we know that God had not yet projected this created man, which had the male and female qualities all within the same spirit life structure. Why did the Creator go this route? All because this created man, who exists now in the masculine as well as the feminine, has not yet been confronted with the option of choice. God knew exactly what would happen, so all of this had to be taken into consideration. God therefore designed him, so that by having later to take the female qualities and that portion of the spirit life, and separate it from the masculine, He was establishing a type of His future plan of redemption. Not just for that created man, but for the many offspring that would descend from that man and woman, in the generations and ages to come. He therefore put them together that way. Then afterward, he created a body, which did carry contain similarities to a previously existing prehistoric life creature called man, cave man. The only thing is, when we look at this man, we can see that he was aware of his earthly surroundings and had a different picture than that prehistoric cave man did. Try to look at it, try to see Adam and Eve in that first pure state of knowledge; a sinless capacity of existing, never yet having been faced by the adversary. That is why chapter two is written like it is, saying, “And there was not a man to till the earth.” There was not a physical being in existence that had the knowledgeable information of how to till the earth. That is why it says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Now we can say this, His spirit was taken right out of God Himself. That makes that spirit person, have to recognize it’s source of existence. Then as God incorporates all these other traits, that make up the soul, the nature of the individual, you can then see why God purposed that every beast is eventually to be subject to him; and when you look at some of your animal kingdom today, size-wise, you see why it is utterly impossible for a man, physically, to control every element, unless he has been so designed intelligently, and knows how to outsmart, and set about things, to bring that huge monstrosity of a thing into obedience to his line of thought. I am reminded of the Psalm that Paul uses in Hebrews, “What is man that thou art mindful of him, O lord.” What is he? Who is this creature that God is ever mindful of? “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.” And thou hast crowned him with glory, honor and power. And then set him over the works of his hands. When you think of a man in his present existing state right now, there is not an animal that stalks this planet today, that this two legged creature (man) has not tamed, or captured, or made subject to his intelligence. Look what he has done in his scientific explorations: he has gone into space, walked on the moon, and so forth. That is all part of the creation of God. I am not saying these things to get us off on some scientific course, or something, but only to show that this creature did not come out of some old stagnant, slimy pond in Africa, and evolve to be like this. Behind this whole picture of redemption, there is an omniscient, omnipotent God that designed the whole thing.

ADAM’S FIRST ESTATE

God created that first man Adam, which means beginning, after his image and likeness. That spirit being had intelligence to think as God thinks. But this intelligence was definitely put in him so that he would know how to exercise it, and use it in it’s future earthly relationship. I am convinced of this one thing, if Adam and Eve had never sinned in the beautiful paradise they were in, Armstrong would never have walked on the moon. There would have been no need for it. Man’s thinking would not have taken that course. Man’s thinking would run in a far greater sphere because one of man’s first objectives in thinking would be to be aware of his maker. To give honor to Him, to be subject to Him. The angels that were assisting God, are careful to carry out precisely the plan of God in creating, and the Bible says God has made man just a little lower than that level of life, so that on earth he will carry out and function on earth, repopulate it, replenish it, till it and beautify it. There would have been no need for man to have been on the moon. Let us just say then, that even though God has created this first man, to also have feminine life and feminine qualities: he is not a freak. He is a perfect creation of the beginning of God for His earthly people to be. When God put this man in that earthly body, we can say then, The body itself has certain similarities and likenesses to the animal kingdom, doesn’t it. This is what throws your scientists off course. We only have two legs, and I tell you, it is just mind-boggling to realize that they can even think that somewhere we were just a little old cell floating around in a pond, and after awhile we became a tadpole. We might have had a tail. Then a little later we sprouted a leg or something, and then a little later on we decided we wanted to get out and walk around a little; so we got out and started walking upright. Then we gradually lost that tail we were dragging around. What a mess. What an abstract conclusion. That is not the picture at all. When God created that vessel, and breathed into that vessel of clay the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul, the spirit being, soul and all, was already existing, waiting it’s hour to be projected into this body of clay. At that very moment the intelligence, the consciousness, all of the sense of sight and so forth, became activated. Adam did not have to look around and blink his eyes and say, Hey, Where did I come from? He knew exactly where he had come from. He was lying there, standing there, whatever position he was in at first, already conscious of who he was, and why he was here. We know the story, how that later God said, It is not good that man should be alone; so He made him a helpmate. He made all the animal kingdom, in physical sizes and such like, and before Eve was taken out of his side, Adam named them. Now all of this goes to show that the masculine qualities were definitely designed for a headship role. When I say that, I hope no sister will climb the wall. Please! I know this modern world out there want to cut man’s masculine head off, and put everything inside the female head. When they have done that, you can rest assured, this world system, as it is now, will never pass out of this generation. She is definitely on a downward course, definitely led for destruction. But there is a reason why that is going on at this time. Adam named all the animals, (and they still carry the same name today) while that female quality was still inside of him. But then when God chose to make him a helpmate, we can say, God has purposed to give him a mate for the reproducing of themselves. Because when God made him and put him here, He put within him the law, or the commission, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Adam and Eve would reproduce themselves, having this commission of God in mind, that another offspring would be brought forth bearing the image and likeness of the Creator. The religious world today climbs a wall, when they think of what we believe; because we teach the seed of the serpent. Up in Canada, I met a man, shortly after we started going up there, that was a U.P.C. man. He talked with us a good while and asked several questions about Bro. William Branham. His final conclusion was, This seed of the serpent, you know, I cannot accept it; because I cannot see my Savior having serpent seed traits in Him. I sat there listening, and thinking, I am an uneducated man, and you are an educated man, a big shot bishop in the U.P.C., and you sit there talking like that. I did not argue with him; but I thought, Thank God for truth, because it is light. We will just take a quick look t it. Before the fall of Adam and Eve, they were existing in what is called the Garden of Eden. What was that garden? Was that some particular thing that God had planted? No, it was not. Yet is says, “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden.” However keep in mind that when He drove them from that garden, it says that man should till the earth from whence he was taken. Now the analysis of that whole reading is this, there was a garden that God planted, but it was not a garden of natural vegetation. It was a garden that we can call paradise. It was what we do not even have here on this planet today. It was how God displayed Himself to man. It is how the spirit world was projected into the earth, and every spiritual thing related to life and the purpose of God that was to unfold in time, on this earth. It does not change the universe, nor the planets, nor anything like that, but it was how God placed Himself and the spirit world, related to it’s future plan. Brothers and Sisters, since God is a Spirit, however God displayed Himself, we can say that, this man and woman now exists, yes, in a certain terrain of the earth. Sure there are rivers, springs of water, and all kinds of fruit trees, and all kinds of other vegetable life. But there was something about the spirit world that is resting over this area. We can say, It is heaven and earth, walking in a compatible relationship. It is actually the 6^th dimension, blended in with the others, that man, through his earthly materialistic outreach can see. In that realm, we have said, Adam and Eve could see an angel walking, could see certain things no doubt, going on in the spirit realm, as angels went about doing their work, and it was just as easy for Adam and Eve to see that, as it was to see a bird lighting in a tree. Because the spirit world and the material world were in perfect harmony. God was that connection. Let us just say this, man existed in paradise, physically, but Adam and Eve had not yet been invested with something that could have been. We know this, that Jesus, called also the second Adam, became a man invested with the headship, the fullness of God. How many understand what I mean by that? It pleased the Father, that in Him, (Jesus) should all fullness dwell. Keep in mind, this fullness of God has nothing to do with whatever is to go on, on the other side of Mars, or the other side of Jupiter or Saturn, or those places. The fullness of God is everything that is related to what God’s plan is right here on this earth. That is why it is described in one of Paul’s epistles, that He is preferred above all things, and all things were made by Him. It is better worded, God created all things for Jesus Christ. Not Saturn, not Mars, but everything on this planet. Every age we have ever had on this planet, since man has been here, that age was previously designed by the omniscient mind of God, with Jesus Christ in the forefront. It was set forth by types and shadows, always pointing to the redemptive work that God would accomplish through His Son, Jesus Christ. That is why He is the head of all things. He is not the headship of the universe, but He is the head of all things related to this earthly dominion. That is how we should look at it. Well, let’s say this, There they are in the garden; before they received this great investment, as to how this great paradise, this multiplication of themselves, will be carried out according to the headship of God. You may say, Why do you go that route, Bro. Jackson? All because when you look at what happened from the birth of Christ, until His baptism, He never preached a sermon, nor did a miracle. He lived for 30 years, proving He was a man, perfect man, sinless, having a nature to please His heavenly Father. That is what our first Adam was doing, before the test. How many can understand my point? Then going back to Adam, when the test came, realizing the U.P.C. characters refuse to accept the fact that the serpent was not a snake on the ground, crawling. The serpent was an upright creature, whose capacity of intelligence, ran similar to the intelligence of Adam and Eve. He had vocal qualities that could communicate. That is why the devil is called the old serpent. His name is Lucifer, and he could move upon this animal like beast, who was the most intelligent of all the animals. Once he got this creature under his spell, Satan (or Lucifer) knew the law of God. He knew the commission that Adam and Eve were under. Satan knew exactly how this law would work. That is why he inspired this serpent, this animal beast, to do what he did. I say he was a servant to Adam and Eve, and if the whole thing had never been ruined, we would see a category of serpent servants today, walking around among mankind, doing their job, doing their work, for man’s benefit, and not causing trouble. You say, That is presumptuous. That may well be, but one thing is sure, it is not a tradition. When this serpent began to communicate with Eve, it was not mental telepathy. The devil knew exactly the genetic structure of this serpent; and he knew that somehow or other, as this beautiful handmaiden of God would come closer to the period of life, by how the original law of God would work and function, to reproduce an offspring of God, having eternal life, and carrying the image and likeness of God, to be carried out and executed on this earth, the devil knew exactly when to move. How long that serpent was enticing her to commit this act, we do not say. But the final analysis is, the serpent, under the influence of Satan, has convinced Eve there is nothing wrong, everything is just right; and she yielded herself to this act of fornication. Once she has done this, she turned and went to her husband, Adam, and began to beg him to eat (or partake) of the same fruit. She saw that it was a relationship that could be used for pleasure. Brothers and Sisters, pleasure is what you see today in our modern world of sex education. That is the devil hitting the whole human race, tearing down all our moral guidelines, that we have lived by for centuries, trying to make every little female creature come to the hour, she is nothing but a prostitute as she walks the face of this earth. What is it? Satan knows his hour is close, that God is going to take him and put him in a bottomless pit, so he has unleashed a philosophy of knowledge, through our schools, to brainwash, tear down conviction, tear down the guards that preserve the virtue of womanhood. He designed also to turn every young man’s mind into a demonic trend to twist and wreck the whole moral structure of this end time generation of human beings. They no longer think of God. The are recipients and expressions of exactly what the devil has designed and planned this whole thing to be. That is why I say, Look at the world today. Just look at it. Watch it. You see Satan, (the devil) in his crowning day. From the schools, on down the line. No wonder they do not want God. No wonder they do not want the creation story any more. They want to be able to blaspheme Him, to prove and disprove and so forth. But as I say that, I hope you will bear with me, as I reach a certain point. Your scientists, your denominational minded, will say, Oh but there is a scientific law that biologically, genetically, will not agree with that, Bro. Jackson. It would be genetically impossible for the genes of the serpent to be compatible with the egg of woman. I turn around a laugh at you doctors of divinity. Because you will have to agree with me, Genesis chapter 6, is the record of what went on, when man was kicked out of the garden. Not what just started, six thousand years later after the garden, God looked upon the whole human race, and said, it repents me that I have even made man. It gives a record, and you educated doctors, come with an answer, because it plainly states that in those days, a period of time, when the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men. Oh yes, you educated fellows will accept the traditional interpretation that the sons of God were angels. Well then, complete it. What you are saying, is that angels pressed themselves into flesh, and committed these illegal sex relationships with women. Why is it laughable to think that you would stoop to such ignorance? Because Jesus, when He was asked the questions about a certain woman, that had had so many husbands, that were all brothers, gave them an answer. They asked, In the resurrection, whose husband shall she be? And Jesus said this, You do not even understand the things of God, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection, they become as the angels of heaven. So, angels are never spoken of in a sex term. But let’s just say it was these angels, pressing themselves into manifested flesh, and that after they began to commit these acts of sexual fornication, it plainly tells us that there were giants born of that type of relationship. Now you educated dignitaries have got to come on and shake your head, and come out of that tradition, because those giants became a physical trait that stained and marked the human race, on down after the flood. But what else about it? Men of intelligent capabilities. Professor So and So. Professor This and Professor That. Just like our universities today, Professor of Archaeology. Educated dignitaries. The world likes to talk about them. The world likes to address them. The world likes to introduce them. But do you know what? When God sent the flood and destroyed them all, He never left a record of what their names were. That goes to show you how much God cared for this stuff. No, do not think that I am picking on school teachers. I am not. But the spirit that goes behind modern man, educated men, denominational bishops, you are going to have to answer one day, Genesis 6, because when the flood came, there was a mixture of these genetic hybrid, cross breed, impure, human beings, who have been designed by Satan. Whether you accept our belief, that the instrument called the serpent, who was part of our animal kingdom in our garden, where our beginning and origin came from, or whether the present world order system of society is a product of that, or whether they are a product of angel’s seed, you cannot turn your back on it. You have got to accept one. Once those angels, or that serpent, whichever route you take, left a genetic trait in the strain of human reproduction qualities, it is still here today.

TRUTH ABOUT GENETIC TRAITS

It has been said many times that man is the carrier of the blood type. Medically and scientifically that is not true. That is just another human tradition. I’ll never forget, a few years ago, we printed another article, I think it is in the article, “From Eden to the Flood.” One sister in the church went to the library and copied this out of a medical science book. I am going to read it into the message. So if you ever hear anyone say, the father always carries the blood type of the child, remember, not always. Not in the majority either. I am going to read the whole thing as she copied it out of the book. “Scientifically blood type is not inherited only from the father. Like all other characteristics, including hair, color of eyes, color and so forth, a child receives an equal number of chromosomes from its mother and its father. Thus depending upon the dominance of the blood type, a child can have his mother’s blood type, his father’s blood type, or a combination of both. There are four blood types, A, B, AB, and O. A and B are equal, which is the reason for the AB type. Both A and B are dominants to O. Each parent has two genes for blood type and passes one to each child. Example: We have a man who received a gene for type A blood from his father, and a gene for type O from his mother. So he has type A blood. (Why? Because A is dominant over O.) His wife has type B blood. She received an O gene from her father, and a B gene from her mother. (Now here it gives an illustration. A certain man called A, and a certain woman called B. The man, referred to as A here, has an O gene and so forth, and the woman, just listen.) Suppose they have four children. The following combinations are possible. First child receives an A from father, receives a B from mother. The child will carry type AB. (Because that has the gene that came to make up the child.) The second child conceived, received A from father, and received O from mother. The child will have type A. (Because type A is dominant O.) We go to the third child. It receives O from father, and B from mother. It has type B blood. (Why? Because B is dominant over O.) The fourth child receives an O from father, and an O from mother. The child is destined to have type O blood.” This is scientific facts, so let us not argue about who carried the blood type of who, or what. In most cases, it is the blood type that is dominant. I wanted to read that into the message, but the main thing is, In the first chapters of Genesis, from the garden of Eden, the paradise of God, Adam and Eve has partaken of this relationship introduced by the devil, through the serpent, with the knowledge that it was for pleasure. The devil knew it was for pleasure. The devil knew what he was going after. The serpent did not. Now that Adam and Eve have really became conscious of what wrong they have done, do you know what this brings us to? There is no way these two creatures can now receive an investment of headship, to go ahead and carry out the future role, of what God had commissioned them to do on this earth. Headship is the investment of God in his leadership, such as He did in Christ, He has denied them. Therefore once again God speaks in the plural, as you read the third chapter of Genesis. As God looks down upon the man and woman, standing there, condemned and guilty, God says again, in the plural, Seeing therefore that man has become as one of us, to know good and evil, thus and so. God knows the difference between good and evil. How many believe He does? Angels do too. Lest therefore he put forth his hand and take hold of the tree of life and live forever, (in his sin) thus and so. What is God saying? While in that paradise realm of God, man and woman retain the knowledgeable understanding of when that perfect law of life was to go into effect. That is what it means. Because God ordained for the female creature to know exactly and precisely when that relationship is to be partaken of to bear life. To you young people that have never heard me preach this, if you would study your animal kingdom, that law is still working there. You never see the animal kingdom living like man does, having sex for pleasure. It is always the female creature that knows when that cycle for mating has come around, to reproduce. That is why there is mating seasons. I know exactly how this X-rated stuff works; they take these words and use them in such a derogatory way. But brother, let me say this, when that season comes for the deer to mate, they are not guilty, they are not condemned, they are not ashamed. They are carrying out precisely what their creator designed for them to do. It is then that the female, which knows this period is coming about, knows exactly when to go and make herself available to that male deer. May I say this, When she has passed that period, and when this whole season is over, you hardly ever see a buck running with a heard of doe. He is usually by himself. Do you know what that tells me, he is not driven by a passion. His mind is not possessed by an overwhelming lust. His whole life is guided by the hand of a Creator. He knows exactly that his relationship is that she will bring forth another little deer. How beautiful. That is the divine law of God. When God said, Seeing that man therefore has become as one of us, keep in mind, when He drove him from the garden, Adam and Eve did not walk a hundred yards away. No. God lifted himself from their presence on the earth. He closed the spirit world to their knowledge, which prior to that was fully accessible to them. They knew what that perfect law of life was. When God drove them out of his presence, that was the spiritual death they were to die. Let me say this also, From that day until this, no woman, born of woman, knows exactly when to conceive. She is the one female creature that must just “guess” about it. Did God curse the deer by giving her periods every month? No. Did He curse the cow? The horse? No. But He cursed every woman, and He did not have to give you the curse the minute you were born. The curse that was given to Eve became an hereditary penalty that is passed from mother to daughter, right on down the line.

MAN’S PENALTY FOR DISOBEDIENCE

Remember, we are in this study to find out what our image is to be in the end. The image that Adam and Eve had originally been designed in, to portray God, to reflect God on earth, in a future role, both to the animal kingdom and the vegetative world about them, the whole thing is thwarted. Eve was deceived, and Adam harkened, and God stripped them of everything. Therefore, when they were driven from that beautiful paradise, God just simply lifted Himself from their presence, leaving them with only the five senses and their conscience to live by. There is the oak tree. There is the hickory, but they cannot see a thing of the spirit world. They are cut off from the sixth sense. From that hour until this, every mortal man, born of woman, sooner or later, if he has any knowledge of God, whatsoever, it has got to be because God revives, and revitalizes the sense of faith. Faith is a revelation that has to come from God. Faith is the beginning of the means that you and I have as the means to communicate with that which we cannot see. We cannot see into the spirit realm, yet we know it is real. I will say this also, your great scholars will never accept it, but I know this serpent seed message is the factual truth. It was the devil’s plan to get at God. The image potential that Adam and Eve was made in the likeness of, Satan disrupted it, stripped it of it’s future potential, and as man began his downward course, he became more and more degenerate, more and more human beings began to be the reflections of Satan, the devil, the god of this world, rather than reflecting the image of their Creator. Mankind does not have to be taught to do wrong; it is in their inherited nature to revel against God, and follow the trend of the god of this world, Satan. That ought to speak to a lot of people, if they would just stop to think about it; the fact that man is born into this world with an inherited nature to sin. However, the truth is hid from the eyes of the wise and the prudent of this world, and revealed unto babes such as will learn. These are those who have been touched by the convicting and wooing power of God, which is properly referred to as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that draws an element of humanity out from the world and makes them God conscious. I have some things here that I want to put in this message, not because most of you sitting here have not heard it said, but I want to say certain things in a certain way, because of remarks I have heard since the death of Bro. William Branham. I have also read some of these critical remarks made by U.P.C. educated: I do not know whether they are doctors of divinity or what, but they have criticized the serpent seed teaching, saying how it is out of the pit, so allow me to say certain things in a way that will give people of God something to look at in the scriptures. Not through Greek and Hebrew, but simply as it is written. I am sick and tired of hearing Greek and Hebrew. This bunch of Gentile theologians have choked to death on it. They have voided every true revelation by that type of what I call stupidity. The Trinitarians use Hebrew and Greek; and have painted themselves into a corner. It has it’s place, but it is not the final source of a revelation. Somewhere written in the structure of the holy scriptures, there is always a picture that God has concealed. That is why Paul could say, he has hid these things from the wise and the prudent, but revealed them unto babes, such as will learn. We know this, that in the advent of Christ, those Jewish theologians, who were looked upon as Scribes, and priests, and Pharisees, were seed of Abraham and they spoke the language of the Hebrew. It looks like they ought to have been able to read from the scriptures, and know that this man must be their Messiah; so their Hebrew did not help them one bit. Even though their scrolls were written in a language they could read; they still rejected the one they all pointed to. It is the same way with this bunch of Gentile, so-called Christian, ecclesiastical minded dignitaries of our day. They have done to the revelation of Jesus Christ, contained in the scriptures, just what those Jewish Pharisees and Scribes did to the physical man, who was their true anointed Messiah. This educated bunch that so boldly challenged the truthfulness of serpent seed, have said that Bro. William Branham said Eve had a sex act with the devil. He never did say such a thing. You will never find it in any of his messages. That is just a critics blind blunder; stumbling through, reading, and assuming. But he stated that the serpent was a creature that the devil, Satan, moved upon, to control his emotional and psychological makeup, when he still had two legs, two arms, and a vocal system to speak. That was the state of the serpent when he was used bye the devil, to bring about the fall, the fall that all religions, from that time until now, agree upon. I have certain things worded a certain way so allow me to present them, because of these critics. I know we are not going to convert them; but I want to give them something to sit down and think about. They are educated, I am not. I have to depend on something else, so bear with me, as we look further in the 3^rd chapter of Genesis, verse 22. They will have to agree with me that something has happened, and God is setting a penalty. “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us.” God speaks again in the plural, but I know one thing, He is not speaking of a trinity of persons in the Godhead. He is definitely speaking in conjunction with the angelic family, who are very present and are carrying out His plan. Therefore God sees that man has become as one of us, (Him and the angels) “to know good and evil.” Why does God say that at this time? Because He has seen that they partook of that forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. That tree of knowledge was not a plant life tree. Neither was the tree of life a plant life tree. Those two trees that we think are plant life, are symbolic. They truly stood in the spiritual realm as symbols, or significant of two laws that man, in his earthly role, is going to be confronted by. If he partakes of one, he will live in that eternal bliss of paradise, with God, forever, and will definitely carry out in the earth, His plan. But the day that he eats (or partakes) of the opposite fruit, which is the tree of knowledge, it is then and then alone that his conscience became aware what evil is, or of wrong doing, or disobedience, or iniquity. God has said, “The day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” We know, physically he did not, but spiritually he did. So looking at this, just keep in mind, that I want my critics to realize, as I said earlier, that this garden was not just a geographical area of plant life that God has planted. It is how God has placed His presence there manifesting Himself in such a likeness, and creating an environment, that while man and woman live in this realm of His presence, they have access to these certain potentials, that he has definitely been created by God, to bear the likeness of, and the image of. Yet in the earthly realm of the earth, he has a commission, a role to carry out, and we know that while in that realm of paradise, Satan, moved upon the serpent, the highest form of the animal kingdom, standing next in relationship to the physical being of Adam and Eve. Eve became a deceived person, misled by the serpent’s misrepresenting what God had said. That is exactly what is wrong with this religious world today. That is why there is definitely a famine of the word of God in the land. There are thousands of church houses across America, but there is definitely a famine of the spiritual bread of life. The human race is feeding on dogma and creed and tradition. You critics will have to agree with me, something took place in the garden; and whatever it was, caused God to act. So now, God acts, saying, “And lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” That tree of life, as I have already described to you, stood there in its spiritual symbol, of the perfect divine law of God, that pertains as to how this sex relationship was to be carried out between man and woman, in the original God-ordained purpose. Brothers and sisters, I am not speaking this to be vulgar; and I want my critics to know, I am not speaking to be vulgar, but to be factual, and to let them, if they read it or hear it, not have to go to the dictionary to find out what I meant. Man’s ability to reproduce himself on this planet, has been the thing the devil has been after for 6000 years. Because that was his test in the garden. It wasn’t how deep he was doing to plow the ground. It wasn’t how he was going to prune the fig trees. He was tested on the primary basis of what he was put here for. Was not Jesus, the son of God, tested? On the basis of what? He was tested on the basis of how He would use this anointing, this God investment that came into Him, when He was baptized at the river. That is why at the end of 40 days, the devil came to Him, tempting Him. No, he did not tempt Him to get drunk. He did not tempt Him to commit fornication. He did not tempt Him to go out and kill someone. He tempted Him primarily on the merits of what He, the Son of God, the Messiah to the Jewish race, was destined to be. The devil knew He was going to be a miracle worker. So he challenged Him on that basis. The devil knew also, from scripture, that somewhere in time, He would be crucified. But he wanted to see if he could trip Him up and let Himself be killed, by committing suicide. He knew that this man he was tempting, was one day going to be King of this earth; so he tempted Him on the basis of that. When we can look and see how Jesus, the Son of God was tempted, and how He would make His decision, then it is easy for us to understand why Adam and Eve was tempted and faced with the ultimatum, of how would they use this knowledge, of the commission that has been instilled in their intellect, as to how they will reproduce themselves. Brother and sister, they fell. They did not pass the test. Let me go ahead and read some more. “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.” In other words, the paradise that we somehow or other, imagined it to be like, was the spiritual environment that they were driven out of. In other words, God just lifted it. He lifted the anointing. He lifted that spiritual, compatible communion of the spirit world and the natural world, being one. That is what the eternal age is going to be, that restored. When you read of the eternal age in Revelation 22, that is when heaven and earth, “kiss and make up;” and God, that eternal Spirit, comes again, like in the beginning. We notice here that as He drove them out, they did not walk one hundred yards. They just, all of a sudden, became consciously aware that all they could see before them was the earth, the land, the dirt, the soil, the trees, and the animal kingdom about them. Where is the angelic family? They were still close by, but Adam and Eve could not see them. God did not drive them out through a gate way. He drove them out of the entrance into that anointing, which is the realm of the spirit world. That is why angels were placed there, with flaming swords. When they were driven out of that environment, they lost the knowledge of how, and when this act was to be carried out for eternal life. Because you read in here, after God called them. Where are thou? And they exposed themselves, with their fig leaves, then God deals with all three creatures. He deals with the serpent first. He did not even give him a chance to defend himself. God said, cursed art thou. God could talk to him; and that creature, with the intelligence he had, understood Him. Cursed art thou above all cattle and creeping things of the earth. He stripped him of his original position in the animal kingdom. Upon thy belly shalt thou go. And thou shall crawl and dust shall be thy meat. Off went his legs, and his arms, and he became a twisting reptile. He is still out there in the animal kingdom today, because Isaiah 65 says, in the Millennium, the serpent will still be eating his meat from the dust of the earth. Therefore there is no reason for any theologian to question the truthfulness of what we are talking about. That original serpent yielded himself to commit an act, designed from that tree of knowledge, and this began Satan’s great plot to get control of this earth, and set up his kingdom, and to bring man downward, from being able to reflect the image of God. Man did not lose his likeness, because his likeness pertains to the substance that he originated from. God is Spirit, so man is a spirit. But the image, which describes His characteristics, His attributes, oh brother, he lost that. Brothers and sisters, as we say many times, Eve actually committed two sex acts within the garden. One was with the serpent, and that is what caused her to go to her husband, Adam, and introduce it to Him. Now the critics could say, Oh I have never heard such a horrible, blasphemous thing, in all my life. But I will say back to every one of them, I have never seen a more blind, more ignorant bunch of ecclesiastical creatures, than you are. They are just like that bunch of men of renown we read about in the 6^th chapter of Genesis. You are going to have to admit, they came from somewhere, outside the garden, outside of paradise, and I want to say at this time, Does paradise still exist? It sure does. It is heaven. Jesus says in Revelation, to the first church age, to those that would overcome, He would give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the mist of the paradise of God. The tree of life is a tree that is governed, and it’s life factor is applied through the new birth. No wonder Jesus said to Nicodemus, in such language, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Outside the garden, Eve is pregnant. Yes, in Genesis 4, verse 1 it says, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived.” That is in reference to what went on in the garden, not out of the garden. Now the critics say, Oh, you are assuming, Bro. Jackson. Follow my thought. Adam only knew her once and she bare two sons. Eve, outside the garden, had two sons. But they were not brought about by just the relationship she had with Adam. These two sons have been born of the product, and as the witness of a dual relationship, that is destined by the law of reproduction that works in their bodies, to bring forth two seed. While in the garden, did God not say, as He cursed the woman, that He would put enmity between her, and the serpent’s seed? Alright then, let us look at this from a scientific, medical standpoint. They are saying, Oh, this is outrageous; it just cannot be so. Do you know, here in the last 30 years, since Bro. William Branham has taught this to be a fact, there has been evidence, after evidence, of such? Medical reports from Norway, from France, and from different nations of the earth vindicate it. Women who live an immoral life, having bad relationship with two different types of men, racial-wise, have given birth to what looked like twins at the time. Back in April, a man from Tennessee, was here in the meeting. He had an article taken out of a paper, and said to me, Bro. Jackson, have you seen this article? I took a look at it, and said, No. It was a true testimony of a young girl, 18 or 19. Her testimony was, she goes to this big city where there is a big convention, for a group of high technical corporate men of industry, and she is going to play the field, and sell herself, like they would. Her testimony is, She approaches this one white man, and in the process of time, he invites her to his room. They have a relationship. She leaves the room and goes back downstairs, and approaches a black man, who is at the same meeting. He too, likewise, takes her. Same thing happened. Then she comes back down, and here is a Chinaman, and he takes her to his room, and the same thing happened. Do you know what happened? She said, as long as she had been in the business, she had never become pregnant in her lifestyle, before. But from three men in one night, she became pregnant and gave birth to a white baby, a black baby, and a Chinese baby. Now let the agnostics and critics howl, and climb the wall. In this perverted society we are living in today, it is full of evidence, of what the genetic reproductive law of God can produce, if the right thing is done. Satan knew also the genetic qualities that would be. So, remember this, God only created one man. That man was Adam. But from the created man, He took the rib and made him a wife, and in both of their bodies were designed all the organs for eventual reproduction. I would like to say to some of the critics of this message, especially some of these Branhamite preachers who have condemned me for not preaching it the way the prophet preached it. He preached it this way. The only thing is, he just did not word it like I would, and he did not go into details with it. It is a shame that all some of these preachers can say is, The prophet said this, the prophet said this, the prophet said this. For when they get finished, you do not know a bit more of what was said, and meant, than when you started. My mind will not submit itself to such tactics.

GENETIC DIFFERENCES OF TWO LINES

Eve has bore two sons, outside the garden; and the genetic affect of two children, sons, are now in process, and here starts the devil’s plan. Cain was never called the son of Adam. He was an offspring of the serpent, and he carried the serpent’s quality. Abel was the offspring of Adam, his father, who was the son of God, made in the image of God, to reflect God in characteristic traits of Himself. But not so with Cain. They were both born outside the garden, so they both need redemption. All these evil traits of murder, lying, cheating, drunkenness and perversions, all of that had not been developed. Satan’s first act was to get the eternal death sentence pronounced. Now then, the reproductive law of reproduction carries the effect of inherited death. No eternal life whatsoever; so let me read certain things the way I have it worded. As we look at our present society today, 1988, after the advent of Christ, we Gentile nations have had access to the gospel of Jesus Christ for 1900 and some years. Man’s present moral state and spiritual condition, are the products of one of two events that took place in the first one thousand years of time before the flood. I have just now explained what took place in the garden. But outside the garden is the beginning of the genetic flow. We know what happened to Cain, who carries the characteristics of the serpent, without a revelation, without that divine guidance of God, jealousy enters him. That is the picture of modern religion today. They may, in their heart, like to believe like this, but think of the pride they would have to forfeit. Think of the recognition they would have to disown, to be like this. All these characteristics were identified in these two sons. Finally Cain rose up and slew Abel, who by faith, knew exactly what to bring for an offering, to please God. It looked foolish to Cain. He said, Why anything will do. Is that not he picture of our modern world today? Now Jackson, don’t tell me we all have to believe like you. Why we are all heading for the same place, we are just journeying different routes. It is the same old story, just using different phrases. But the end results will be the same, for they are void of a revelation. Well God ordained to give Eve another seed by her husband, and that son started the line of what is called the sons of God. This son of God line, starting with Seth, still carried the likeness of God, because of the substance they are brought forth from. But we can see, the image structure is beginning to be marred, because it no longer has eternal life qualities. Death became an hereditary penalty. We find then that Cain, when he had left the presence of God, went out of Eden, into the land of Nod. When we read the genealogy of Cain, who do we find? We do not find them seeking God at all. They are religious, but they are adopting and practicing religions of their own design. That is a picture of our modern world today. Anything will do. Any belief will do. While in the land of Nod, Cain’s line multiplied, and when you read the record of it, you find all the perversions of human flesh in that line. They were genetically cultivated by Satanic influence: notice, inventors of evil things, polygamy, more killing. What was Satan doing during those first few hundred years? He was taking that Cainite line, which are called men; they are not sons of God; they are men. He was breeding, genetically, certain attributes that will affect the genetic flow. Seth’s line was still capable of calling on the Lord, worshiping God, knowing that they were sinners, but brother, they knew one thing, they knew conscious wise, that they were offspring of Adam, who was the son of God. Now somewhere in the line, Satan is not content to leave this picture like this, so God is going to permit him to strike again. Now to our critics, those who want to scoff at what the serpent did in the garden, go with us into Genesis 6, where it gives us a record of what began to accumulate within the social structure of the human race, outside of the garden. In verse 1, it says, “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.” The word fair, there, would not necessarily mean they were so white. It is a word that describes the attractiveness of them. Let me say this also, and I say it in due respect to every young girl in here; the world you see today, and the way they want young women to dress and act, is actually Satan’s crowning day. He has the social human race in his clutches, and they do not know it. When prayer is no longer used in school, when the story of creation according to the Bible, is taken completely out, and sex education is put into the school systems to be taught as fundamental basis, do you know what happened? Satan just opened up a can of worms. Young minds became exposed by this Satanic way. It was Satan’s way of stripping the future generation of womanhood from having anything to cherish; any virtue. That is why in Chicago, and other big cities, young teen girls, 10, 12, 13 and so on, are finding themselves pregnant. You know good and well a 13 year old girl is not psychologically mature enough for that kind of responsibility, to provide for, to cherish, and to be a mother. They are not ready to face the obligations. But that is the picture that Satan has projected in this age. These daughters of men, we can say, Satan definitely designed these women, and gave them a psychological complex, that they have no convictions, they have no virtues, they do not even look at life like that. Life to them, is something to enjoy. When they began to parade back and forth in front of the sons of God, who were the Seth line, it was because God permitted the devil to make this stab, and it plainly says that the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men and saw that they were, (I am going to word it like this,) sexually attractive. That kind of parading themselves, is what broke down the convicting barriers in the mentality of this Sethite line. Now you critics who will not accept this route, then I will take you back, and allow you to say that these daughters were the daughters of the Sethite people; and that these sons of God were angels, pushing themselves into the flesh, but where do you go with that? Either route you go, it is Satan who is the designer, to pervert a genetic line of the human race, and you are going to have to face one of them, one way or the other. If it was angels, who are devils, that got into the picture, it did not happen the day the flood came. Oh no. Genesis 6 is a preview of what has accumulated through time, by this Satanic way of approaching. So whether you want to accept that it was the serpent, which was the original thing that started it, or, whether it was angels, pressing themselves into human flesh, you are going to have to admit with me, that man’s present state of condition, both morally and spiritually, is the product of a genetic breakdown of his hereditary, genetic capabilities to reproduce himself in the first original state of likeness in the image of God. Satan has now achieved his goal, by bringing these daughters of men in among them, through the Cainite line. He (Satan) has produced polygamy, fornication, adultery, murder, drunkenness, and inventions of evil things. It plainly tells you that giants were born from that type of union. But do you know what? They never made a name that went down in God’s record. But it produced another quality of men, and these are the kind I like to talk about. Men of renown. Dr. Fosdick, Dr. Professor Dolittle, and all that kind of men. Oh well the world likes to talk about it. What university they went to, and how many degrees in this and that. You know, a child of God is hardly ever recognized in this social world, but you bring all those characters along, and they will spend a fortune, just to advertise. Well, you are living in Satan’s day, when you see all these genetic characteristics. When God looked down upon that element of society, after about the last 600 years that led up to the flood, that whole Sethite line, and Cainite line had so mixed, Satan had achieved in affecting the genetic law of man’s ability to reproduce himself in his original likeness and image of God. That is why every human being carries traits of what Satan’s plan was, and that is why we can say, the serpent nature is bred into every boy and girl born of woman and man, from that hour until this. That is exactly why now we are just, no doubt a few short years before the coming of Christ. We have hundreds and thousands throughout the world, whose mentality is void and destitute of the knowledge of God.

VIRGIN BIRTH EXPLAINED

Let me say certain things this way, By the time the first 1600 years have elapsed, man is no longer a reflection of God, in the image-charactership. He is a creature that somehow or other, has limitations in his ability to understand the Creator. Why else did men begin to go in various directions, and their lives begin to become controlled by the spirit of all kinds of perversions? That is why God looked down and it repented Him that He even made man. Seeing that man has corrupted his way, he has defiled the earth with all this perversion. Well, we know that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord; and brothers and sisters, somewhere back there, the devil, that fallen angel, called Lucifer, spoken of in Isaiah, chapter 14, has got control of the planet. Not in fullness; but God has allowed him to have temporary control of certain functions of the human beings here on this planet earth. He set up a kingdom of his own; that is why Paul the apostle called him the god of this present world. He begins to design the future of dispensations and kingdoms, and how man will function on this planet. As man lives outside the garden of paradise, away from the divine law of God, he lives under the permissible law of God, pleasure, and look what his environment has produced. Now when I say these things, I want to say it slowly with meaning, and I do not want to debase man in this one sense of the word. Though man fell, and his nature is rebellious, yet because he is physically here, he has a role to go ahead and fulfill in the earth. However when God drove man from paradise, because of what Adam did by disobedience, He cursed the earth, the ground and said, “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” The earth soon began to feel the effect of that curse, and ceased to function in the primary beautiful state that it was originally planned to function in, if only Adam would have walked in the full likeness and image of God. When we look at our present world system: do we say that everything man does is evil? No. However let us look at his total environment. Look at the picture of man in general, and the greed that drives him. Think of all the earth’s resources, that through time could have been used so wonderfully, and shared by every human being, until now. Nevertheless after 6000 years, a few billionaires wind up with it all, leaving portions of the earth’s society in certain countries, living like rats, called third world countries. Why? It is Satan’s kingdom. He is the god of this present world. He is the one that influences man to be so evil, so selfish, and so greedy. That does not mean that every time a farmer goes out and plows the ground, he is doing evil. No. You do not look at it that way. But you look at man in the total picture of what he socially, and environmentally has done. It just goes to show, that sooner or later, man will always corrupt a good thing. Look at what has happened to America. When it was first discovered, look at those forefathers that came here, and out of a wilderness, built their log cabins, and began a primitive state of living. They cherished the revelation and hunger they had in their hearts toward God. Morality, and spirituality, was a primary must. The Bible, the Fox book of Martyrs, and Pilgrim’s Progress was the three books they took their learning from. That was enough. But it is not so today. Those are the last books they want in the library. That is why the nation that started out, supervised and protected, in certain areas of its existence, by God, sooner or later, when it got to a certain state, then God just turned it over to Satan, to have as it is. I will say this, Of all the nations on the face of the earth, that have been influenced by the gospel of Jesus Christ in 1900 and some years of the gospel dispensation to the Gentiles, America has slid further, is manifesting more immorality, and atheism, than all the rest of the world put together. That ought to tell us something. Yet as I said earlier, that U.P.C. man, sitting there talking with us, said, Well I just cannot accept the serpent seed teaching, simply because I cannot see my Savior having serpent traits in Him. He was an educated man, but was too blind to know what took place in the virgin birth. Let me explain something right here. I am not a doctor. I have said this many times, I am a farmer by my natural birth, and I am a preacher by the grace of God. The virgin birth was such a necessity, it was the only route that God would choose to bring the Savior into the world. A great miracle took place. Yes, way back in a primitive era of time, when medical science was not even thought of, but it all displays the great wisdom and beauty of a sovereign God. After explaining our revelation of serpent seed to that U.P.C. man there in Canada, he said, “Brothers, I thank you for the spirit that you have spoken to me in. But I just cannot see my Savior as having had any serpent seed in him. That would just be hard for me to accept.” Well I thought to myself at the time, Here is a man, high educated, regarded in his denomination as a man of great integrity, and intelligence, and has been looked upon for years, for his ability to be trusted in that capacity, yet he is without revelation of the word of God. Let me just explain in a simple way, what takes place at the instant of conception. We have two nurses here in our assembly, one is a female nurse, she is the mother of this young man who is a male nurse. As I was preaching on this subject, he approached me, giving me a little more detail of the development of things. Therefore I am going to break this down in this fashion, what takes place at the point of conception. As he explained this to me, the egg which comes down from the woman’s ovary, through the Fallopian tube, when it comes into the uterus, which can be called the womb, if it is met there by the sperm of a man, and the egg becomes fertile, this is the process of conception. We must understand that within the egg and the sperm of man, is an equal representation of chromosomes, which carry the hereditary qualities of both individuals. Therefore this is why a child from two individuals, can have characteristics from both sides. But as the egg becomes fertile, something takes place immediately. The egg bonds itself to the wall of the uterus, in the back, near the backbone area. As this egg bonds itself, the blood of the mother, carries oxygen, and nutrients which must reach this little beginning process, which we can now call the embryo. The outer form structure of this egg becomes a birth sac. Now as that birth sac begins to identify itself, within this, the little embryo begins to go through the early stages of forming and drawing from the mother, it’s nutrients and oxygen, and whatever there is, need of for growth. Growth will demand this birth sac to gradually enlarge, as all of the elements begin to feed into the embryo. There is one thing we must understand. Where the birth sac bonds to the wall of the uterus, there is none of that mother’s blood that goes through that bonding area. There is a mystery there. The Creator designed it this way. But the blood of the mother, the wall being so thin, the blood of the mother comes to that point, then on the inside of this birth sac, there is, what is called the umbilical cord, or the navel cord. This navel cord forms right at the place in the sac, where it is bonded on the outside of the sac to the wall of the uterus. Through this little cord is absorbed all the nutrients and oxygen and such like, coming from the mother. But keep in mind, there is no blood of the mother passing through the area where this bond takes place. There is a mystery there, only a Creator could design it to be this way. The blood of the mother brings all the elements to that point. The navel cord on the inside, going into the body of the little embryo, carries the oxygen, and the nutrients for the growth of that little body, and all the other organs that began to later identify itself. Naturally as the little embryo, within the birth sac, enlarges, the birth sac itself enlarges. Then we know that there is a liquid substance, water, begins to form around this little embryo. This is a protection, a cushion, so that the adult woman, walking, jarring, falling, or anything, this acts as a cushion to the early stages of this little embryo. My main point is, there is none of the mother’s blood that passes beyond the point of this bonding. That is as far as her blood goes. There is nothing other than oxygen, the breakdown of plant food life, that is then changed into nutrients, into the very carbohydrates, proteins, enzymes, and what-have-you, that will be absorbed through this bonding wall, and picked up by the umbilical cord, which feeds it into the body of the infant. Therefore there is no way for anyone to even think that when we are talking in the virgin birth, that God even used the egg of Mary. No. Because the egg of Mary would have carried equal chromosomes to earthly man, therefore if God had used the egg of Mary, then it is true, there would have been certain hereditary traits of sin and such like, that the baby Jesus would have received by that. But we know now that God did not use her egg. For there is no woman that can produce a sinless egg. Her egg is tainted with in, just as much as the sperm of man. Therefore as God purposed to use the virgin womb, He definitely created the nucleus, the very beginning of what became the embryo that became the little baby Jesus. No one could even prove what blood type Jesus carried, because it was not a blood that could be typed or associated to that of fallen man. His, was blood that God had created. Jesus was a perfect man, yet was the Son of God, having no sinful nature at all. From the body of Mary, came all the elements necessary to create and bring about a physical earthly body of human flesh, yet it carried no attributes of sin or death within it. Therefore Jesus was perfect human being, when we look at Him in the flesh, but He was without sin, because He had none of man’s hereditary genes. I will give you a little biological breakdown of what the virgin birth was, and how conception was brought about, without carrying any attributes from the virgin Mary. Then this should let you know, that when God chose this virgin womb, He created in that womb, a perfect cell of life which carried none of Mary’s genes. He just created the very nucleus of beginning, of perfect fleshly cells, and then to that it was necessary, in order for that child to be the seed of woman, and for him to be in the likeness of sinful flesh, His physical makeup had to be derived from what Mary ate. I ask you though, Who knew the blood type of Jesus? No one. How could they? Because of New Testament teaching, we are able to talk about Jesus being the image of God, and how you and I are to be conformed into the image of the Son of God, so what does all that add up to? Not one of us are righteous, and not a one of us seek after God. WE do not really have the qualities to. But when He reaches down, and His Holy Spirit goes to work, He eventually gets inside of us, where His Spirit goes to work, He eventually gets inside of us, where His Spirit is infused with our Spirit, then He can get control of our makeup. Then he sets about to reestablish, to renew, and to make alive in us, those qualities and characteristics we were born without. We did not know how to love in the real true sense of the word. We did not know how to bear any kind of fruit that would please God. That is why the scriptures say, All have sinned. There is none righteous. God condemned the whole human race. But He planned a way of escape. Therefore when people think Jesus died just to save them from going to hell, that is just the beginning point. God’s ultimate plan and purpose was, not only to save us from our sinful state, but that He might have an opportunity to renew us and recreate us, so that we would reflect the image in character, attributes and such like, that was manifested in Jesus Christ. It is not enough just to be a church member. We definitely have to know that we have been born again, and are allowing the Holy Ghost to reproduce in us, qualities that are pleasing to Him. The reason most professing Christians do not have this understanding, is because they do not have the image, that likeness, that something that causes their spiritual mind to be contacted by the Creator. I am glad you do not have to go take a course in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to learn this. Nor do you have to go to such and such a Catholic college to learn this. No. No, you would not learn it there anyway, because truth is a no-no there. Truth is something that only the Holy Ghost brings. You have to know who, or what God was talking to, in Genesis 1:26, in order to have any concept of what the image is, that man was created in.

The “religious community of the world,” think we are absolutely crazy, for teaching that man’s original sin was the wrong use of the sex act. They, by logic, try to disprove it. But if you look at the book we are reading from, the word Genesis, means, history of the genes. Did that happen by accident? No, I hardly think so. I think if we will just open our minds and stop being so religious from a traditional standpoint, and try to realize that God is a Spirit, and not a man that He should lie, we can see the truth of things. If that Spirit is supreme, omniscient and omnipotent, He is just as real today as He was six thousand years ago, when our parent Adam was created. That sovereign Spirit is just as able to speak today, and deal with the spirit of man, as He was then. The sad part is, this world thinks we need to study in a seminary somewhere, a bunch of theories. Well, I want you to know, the Bible was not written by men who had studied how to write it. We are not justifying illiteracy, nor ignorance. But neither does it give place to the wisdom of this world, as though it is the prime means by how you interpret anything. There is a source of wisdom in this world, and it functions and deals basically with the material world about us. But when you cross the threshold, out of the material world, the tangible environment, and you begin to deal with a spiritual side you cannot see, then you have to take the Bible, for your source. In Genesis 1:26, there are two words that unlock the revelation, US, and IMAGE. When you know that the word IMAGE pertains to spirit, instead of flesh, you have no difficulty seeing that the word US, pertained to the Creator and his angelic helpers which were all spirit beings. These words carry continuity throughout the scriptures. The word image, is pertaining to the characteristics of God Himself, what He is referred to, throughout time, as a redeeming God. We have to first realize there is an intelligence which is far superior to the intelligence of man, that man is made in the image and likeness of. The original man was made in the image of God, in that capacity. He had an intelligence, but within the realm of God, there are other characteristics that deal with the expression of His love, His mercy, His ability to redeem, and things of that nature. It is what His personality is made up of. The word likeness is a word that pertains to the substance of what He is. He is not flesh. He is Spirit. So man was made in the likeness of his substance: as God is spirit then man is spirit. We are not looking at the tangible body. We are looking at that inner being. That inner man is a spirit: and that is the part that is of the likeness, or the substance of what God Himself is. We realize there is no other source of life in the universe, but do not think that God was some mad, long haired scientist, in some laboratory, stirring up a bunch of chemicals, to see what He could come up with. No. He was not interested in creating a creature that would bear the same likeness that He is. If He is referred to as Father, then it means He took of Himself, for He is the only source of life in the universe. When He takes of Himself, then he separates a little portion, a little speck of his Spirit, and once He separates it from Himself, it does not lose its likeness; it is still the same likeness, but when He puts into it the various characteristics, there is the five senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell and feel. Alright, but the intellect, the conscience, and all these other attributes that go to make up the very person that distinguishes him, how he thinks, or acts, in relationship to someone else, these are things that God puts in that spirit that gives it individuality, apart from Him. Then that which He has created is a literal offspring of God Himself. Not only to live as God lives, but to think as God thinks. It does not make him God, it just makes him an offspring, to think like God. Now, in God’s original purpose then, when He said, Let us make man in our image and after our likeness, He also said, and let them have dominion over the various things, marine life, animal life, fowl life, and such, so the original creating of Adam was that he was destined to be an offspring of God, placed on this planet, to have a God like intelligence and mentality to see things as God would see them, and do as God would do.

RESURRECTION A SURE THING

We have looked at what took place in the garden of Eden, and how it caused the fall of mankind; so let us go to 1^st Corinthians 15:45, where Paul lis dealing with something that was necessitated by man’s fall. Here, the apostle Paul is establishing the fact that there is definitely going to be a resurrection of the dead. The Church had become very concerned about it, and no doubt asked many questions. How could it be possible, that god could do such a thing? Let us just notice how Paul approaches this. “And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul.” Now this body of clay that God formed of the dust of the earth, was not formed in His image and likeness. That body was formed much in the likeness and image of earthly beast like creatures. That is why your scientist and evolutionists of today are trying to connect this present man with that prehistoric creature; but there is no way genetically, they can do it. Yet they are going to stand before the Creator one of these days, and find that the missing link was so simple. They have no confidence in the Bible, yet the Bible vindicates all their archaeological, geological, and biological findings. Now this body had nothing to do with man being in the image of God. It is just a shell, for what was created in God’s image. It is the inner man that is conscious, and that projects certain attributes, but it is through the body that this inner man is conscious of his material surroundings, therefore it is necessary that his spirit have certain senses, that acquaint him with all of this. That is why he can see, hear, taste, and smell, and feel. Otherwise, he may have certain things in his spirit makeup, but if somehow or other, it is not able to communicate to it’s natural makeup, he might walk right straight into an inferno of fire, and be gone that quick. That living soul, that God formed of clay, had two legs, a trunk, a chest, a head, two arms, and I defy any man to say he was a hunchback, bow-legged, creature that walked like some cave man. That Adam was straight, upright. Sure there are characteristics and similarities in bone structure, but this man was a different creature than that prehistoric creation, that was here during some other period of time, when God was testing His angels. God made him to be a physical embodiment of intelligence, and the expression of a divine contact, over a natural animal creature. He had superior dominance over all the other animal-like creatures. When he became a living soul, his inner makeup, his real self, which was already in the spirit, now became earthly aware. His soul became activated and could now communicate with his natural world. Next we notice that God planted a garden eastward in Eden. The garden itself was not Eden. Eden was the geographical territory; but the garden was something that religions and archaeologists and scientists cannot even probe, because it was a spiritual environment. God displayed Himself over a certain geographical portion of the earth, and in that spiritual presence of Himself, since He is not a God that lives in a form, He can demonstrate and manifest that eternal Spirit of Himself in any likeness He pleases, to start his earthly purpose for this present man that He has created and formed. It says that He brought that man, and placed him in the garden. To do what? To till the ground and such like. Brothers and sisters, geographically, when you study the areas of the middle east, between the Tigress and Euphrates, and the Nile River, and the ancient river that crossed the areas of Saudi Arabia, that geographically, was Eden, as mentioned in Genesis, before the flood. Yet when the Bible says in chapter 3, “Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken,” God did not drive him out of a geographical spot of the earth. History proves that our ancestors all came from the Middle East, called the Fertile Crescent. It is the cradle of human civilization. Why do all the archaeologists that study history, relative to man’s present types of governments and things, go back to that spot? Because that is where it was all cradled: that is where it is all formed. To study human government, you sure do not go to a pond in Africa. You go to the Middle East. There, buried in the ancient ruins, they find treasures of writings, of records and things that show man’s constant ascension, in one way, and yet his descending in spiritual ways, of all things pertaining to his present sphere of government. Let us continue to read. “The first man Adam was made a living soul.” Do you think that man was ignorant of what he was supposed to do, once he became consciously aware? No. He was not traipsing up and down upon the earth, trying to find where he came from, and who he was. Within his intelligence, before he ever left the realm of his Creator, was the commission given to him. He knew automatically that he was destined to subdue the earth, and to replenish it. What does the word replenish mean? Fill it up again. That word ought to tell enough people today that the earth had been full of something prior to our era of time. The fact that Adam was to replenish, restock it, refill it, lets us know that. God is not ignorant in the language He gives mankind to speak. Neither is He ignorant to cause his Bible to be written haphazardly, with words just misconstrued any old way. In the first place, before the flood, all mankind spoke one language. After the flood, up until the tower of Babel, they all spoke one language. But something happened at the tower of Babel, and they have been babbling ever since. This is why religions babble, and even scientists babble. About the time they think they have found a bone that locks it in, another decade or two, and somebody else finds another one, and it rips that one all to pieces. If they would spend as much time on their knees, searching the pages of this book, there is hidden in here, intelligence they will never be able to tap into. As Adam was made a living soul, not only was he conscious and aware, that he was to refill the earth, he was aware also that ever living creature was to be subject to him. In other words, he would not have to carry a club and beat it into submission. No. This man made in the image and likeness of God, had certain invested authority; and this animal kingdom was to walk under that authority. Now the garden of Eden, that spiritual environment was called Paradise; and if you want to know what it looked like, read Revelation, chapters 21 and 22. John saw it coming down from God, out of heaven, adorned as a bride prepared for her husband. On the external, it looked like a city, but once he went through the gates, he never described another boulevard, only one street, and that was the street that went straight to the throne of God, with the tree of life on either side of it. In Rev. 22:2, that tree is spoken of in the feminine gender. It goes to show that god’s plan of redemption has consummated. Adam was made a living soul, and placed inside that beautiful environment, but his sin changed all of that, and mankind has to be redeemed, in order to enter back in.

THE TWO ADAMS

For centuries there has been inside the human being, a mystical inner feeling that somewhere out here in a dimension we cannot touch, there is a fairy world. I want to use that approach to explain something. That little fairy world, that writers would write stories about, for children, really exists. That fairy world is not some 40 million light years away. It is somewhere just beyond the reach of the present earth’s atmosphere, where Satan is always kicking up a fuss. I have a reason for going at this, this way. Satan is never described as being in the universe, messing up the planetary bodies’ normal functions. God keeps that all under control. Whatever your idea of it is, keep in mind, it all functions precisely. It is so accurate that scientists can even make a digital watch and figure it right down to the second. That is God’s timepiece, and it all speaks of eternity. But within that realm, within this universe, He put something here, made in His image and likeness, and He has been concerned about him ever since. Let us finish reading this verse. “The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam, (Jesus, the Christ) was made a quickening Spirit.” Now we have two Adams mentioned. The first one, and the last one. Both are men. What is the difference? Paul describes the first one, a living soul, that was given full potential and a commission, Replenish the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over all the creeping things, fowls, marine life, and such like. That was his purpose. The second Adam was made a quickening Spirit. Why? He was made to give back to the human race, something it had been robbed of, eternal life. Man was definitely to rule here, to live here, to subdue things, and do things right, so redemption restores all of that, giving him immorality. Notice the following verse. Verse 46, “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, (He is actually saying, that this first man was not a spiritual man. We will describe in awhile, what Paul meant by that.) but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” In other words, he is actually saying, It was the second Adam who was the spiritual man the first Adam should have been like. Verse 47, “The first man is of the earth, earthly. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such as they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image, (the expression, the characteristics) of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” It changes us inside, how the inside works through the outside. Many times we overlook simple words. Why would Paul think to describe such things in such terminology? Remember though, when he said, “As we have borne the image of the earthly,” he was not talking about the number of toes or fingers we have. He is talking about how that inside creature walks and talks and acts and thinks and conducts himself, once he begins to reach an age that he can start talking. No wonder it says in the bible, as written by the apostle Paul, “There is none righteous, no not one.” The finest cultural family that ever walked the face of this earth, cannot give birth to a child that can please God. If that soul has not been dealt with by God Himself, and made to become personally aware of his need to communicate with God, personally, all he has is head knowledge about God, and there is no eternal life in that. When you think of a human soul, you are looking at how that soul expresses itself, in it’s tangible world. Some of them have something inside, that begins to want to explore, and find out about God. Others, the more you try to talk to them about God, and their need for god, the more they become bored and aggravated. Leave me alone! It is because they do not feel a need. There is something missing. But when you look at the inner being that way, you are looking at his soul makeup. Keep in mind, when God made Adam, (the spirit being) he had in him all the qualities he needed to reflect the type of attributes God wanted him to reflect. Potentially they were all laying there. Then when God said, Seeing there is not a man to till the earth, God knew, so out of the ground He formed this vessel of clay to walk upright, as an intelligent creature that is going to physically rule the natural creation he is in. God made him for that. When God put that garden like He did, and placed Himself there, manifested Himself in that way, I will call it the fairy world, because we do not know where it is. We like to write little stories about it. Have you ever read stories about little children dying, and being carried off into heaven? They are escorted into heaven by angels. Artists have pictured them walking through flower gardens, with little deer looking at them. Little birds flying. Everything is depicted at peace. God can manifest Himself in that same likeness. I have read articles of ancient saints, dying, and how on their deathbed, they saw the angelic beings coming to take their spirits to glory, and as they were leaving this earthly body, there was another world coming into view right before them. As they were leaving this old sin cursed world, they were entering a world that no human tongue can describe the beauty, the peace, the tranquility of. That is the spirit world. Brothers and sisters, why did Paul say that this first man Adam was not the spirit man, but was a natural man? Well we know that within this paradise, this fairy world of God’s presence, God has set a condition for His being there. There stood the tree of life and the tree of knowledge; and God said, you can eat of all these other trees pertaining to plant food, that are for physical replenishment. But this tree of knowledge has nothing about it to replenish physical nutrients to the body. The natural trees were for the replenishing of nutrients for this natural existence, and the tree of life was for his spiritual existence. Therefore those two trees which stood in the midst of that paradise of God were not trees of plant life at all. They were symbolic of the two ways that God set before this man. Is it not stated in other scriptures, especially to Israel, how He set before them two ways? Choose ye this day which you will serve. There is a way called evil and there is a way called good. There is a way called right, and there is a way called wrong. Therefore the tree of knowledge was the wrong thing and the tree of life was the right thing. Brothers and sisters, the minute Adam and Eve were brought time-wise into the hour of what they would do with this commission that is instilled in them, as to how they will function on earth, as well as in this great paradise, which we will call the fairy world, for the sake of illustration, they failed the test. They failed before they got started. They failed the very test, and the fact that they failed the test, kept them from becoming the final super invested persons they were destined to be. In other words, if Eve would have said to that serpent, You get out of here, or I am going to call for Adam right quick, it would have been a different picture today. That also goes to prove that there was a creature in our garden that looked much like those of the prehistoric world. But think of this, that creature called the serpent, could vocally communicate with Eve, and Adam, because God made him the highest form of the animal kingdom, and gave him intelligence, to be able to communicate with this God-like creature, which was Adam himself, and Eve, as well as the rest of the animal kingdom. But because that creature yielded himself to Satan, to do against the plan of God what he did, God stripped him from that place, stripped him of his arms and legs, and left him wiggling along on the ground. He put him in the reptile family. Do we know which one it is? Absolutely not; there is no way to know. Adam and Eve did though. When that fairy world was taken away from them, and angels with flaming swords were placed there, guarding the way to the tree of life, they were not guarding the way to the Middle East, there was no wrought iron fence of a gate to the Middle East. They were guarding the way into the spirit world. When they were driven out of that divine presence, to till the ground from whence they were taken, Adam and Eve never walked anywhere. It was just like waking up out of a dream. The beautiful fairy world was gone. They were never to enter back into it again. Never to see angels again, as they had before. Never to see that beautiful, blissful environment in which God portrayed Himself. They saw only the natural world. They would live to see the earth sprouting thorns, thistles. They would live to see the sun getting hot, and drops of sweat on their brow, all because their servant, the serpent, is gone. God stripped him of his legs, stripped him of his arms. Stripped him of his vocal capabilities; and put him out there in the reptile family. Eve knew which one he was, but we do not. Adam and Eve were perfect in their natural makeup; but they had not yet come to that point where divine inspiration was going to tell them precisely when, where and how to partake of the tree of life. That is why we have got to see them in a different scope, than we see Jesus. When they failed the test, not only have they failed to be the spiritually led and used human beings they were supposed to be, but when God drove them from His divine presence, spiritual death immediately set in. That is where the fall lay. This traditional thing where religions think Adam and Eve just walked one day, and ate of a certain type of plant life, and God imputed the death penalty because of it, is spiritual blindness. I’ve said this, If anything of plant life caused sin and death in the human race, redemption would have come by plant life also. But redemption is not a product of plant life; and you know that. When they saw that they were naked, what did they do? They did not know to do anything else but to hide those parts of their body they had disobeyed with. They pulled fig leaves, and wove them together, just to cover themselves. They did not cover their mouth, where they were supposed to have eaten the apple. They covered this part of their body. That should let us know, it is about time religion got off it’s crutch of traditional ideas. There is an element of theological bigwigs out here today that say, Stay away from those people, they are a cult. By what proof do you brand anything a cult, if you can not take the very book that the cult is preaching from? Brothers and sisters, the biggest cult in this world is the mother of all religion, the Catholic Church. She is the one that cooked up the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, the queen of heaven. You will read nowhere in the Bible that Mary was ever to be used as a mediator, or a medium to pray through, or to. There is one thing sure, she was the mother of that little vessel of clay. But there is another thing sure, Mary cannot entice that little boy of hers to do anything. If the Son of God himself, when He was here, would say these things, I do nothing of my own self, He certainly would not be persuaded by a dead person. He even refused to honor her, when He was preaching in a certain crowded place and individuals came in and said, Behold your mother and your brethren are outside and want to talk with you. What did He say? He said, Who is my mother, who is my brother, but he that doeth the will of God? If He would do the will of God down here by talking like that, rest assured He will do it again. Because it was that obedience of His down here, that pleased the heavenly Father, so that the Father took Him up and seated Him on the right hand of majesty. Now let all the world beg Mary, Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. She is still in her grave and she will stay there until the rest of the saints come out. She is not interceding for anyone. The sad part of it is, these Protestant daughters are not one bit better than their mother, Roman Catholicism. If you can catch the picture, why Paul would say, The first man Adam was made a living soul, when he had all those potentials lying there in him. You must realize that all those potentials had to be tested to see whether he would, by obedience, fulfill the divine plan of God, or fail, and fail he did. Therefore it became necessary for God to put His redemption plan in effect. From that day until now, every child that was born has had a nature to be disobedient. Death was the first penalty imputed to Adam and Eve, but all these other attributes we see in the human race today have all been added later, as we find out what really did take place. Keep in mind, when the two sons were born outside the garden, Cain and Abel, no where does the Bible ever record that Cain was the son of Adam. It tells us in 1^st John 3:12 that Cain was of that wicked one. In other words, Eve was his mother, but Adam was not his father. There was no way that Cain could have the same kind of spiritual endowment, and outlook as Abel which was Adam’s son. When we see the two growing up and the jealousy begin to creep in, Cain rose up later, and slew his brother and then we find that God appointed Eve another seed. For the first few decades, outside the garden, these Sethites were the very offspring of Adam, who was the created son of God. They were not eh spiritual creatures man was created to be, but they were sons of God nonetheless. The difference was, man then had a death penalty imputed into his genetic law of reproduction, so that every child born, was destined to die, sooner or later. I want all of you to hear this, As the two lines of human beings we read of in Genesis, chapter 4, 5 and 6, multiplied, if the two lines would have stayed separate, which was the Cainite line and the Sethite line, you would have two elements of people on this earth today. You would have an element of people that would be born of parents, always to know God, always to seek after Him, always to love Him, but would still have a death penalty in them, and sooner or later they are destined to die. But in that other Cainite line, you would see just exactly what is going on today in our society drunkenness, murder, lying, perversion, all of the perverted attitudes about God. There is a people today, they literally climb a wall if you even mention God in their presence. They look at you like you are some stupid, ignorant creature. It is because their intelligence is made to look at things like that. It was not so in the beginning. The devil knew exactly what he had to work with. I will say this, That is why Genesis 6 plainly states, that after men began to multiply upon the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, then the sons of God looked upon these daughters of men. The sons of God were those of the Sethite line, the descendants of Adam, for a few decades before the mixture. But the daughters of men were the Cainite line. They had no convictions, no conscience to worry about God, or anything. The devil over there, was breeding up wicked attributes; and since there were no convictions or laws to curb, or withhold those things, when that Cainite element began to really go on the rampage, then God permitted, that when the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men, and saw that they were fair, and started to marry them, then there is where the genetic attributes became mixed. I would not care if the Catholic priests, or the biggest bishops of your theological seminaries were sitting present, I would still say it. Right there is where the two genetic strains began to be crossed. The devil knew what he was after. It seems like God has somehow or other, permitted the devil to do certain things. Sooner or later, evil brings the whole element down. When they began to take those daughters of men, not only were there giants born, and men of renown, intelligent wizards, but the qualities of Godliness and virtue were fast slipping from the picture. When God looked down upon the earth, in the sixth chapter of Genesis, just before the flood, and said, “It repents me that I have even made man,” it was because of what that mixture had produced. The likeness was still of the same substance. In other words, the spirit of man that has been pregenerated from Adam is still spirit that has come from God, but it has lost the original image, or how the inner man should portray himself. He no longer thinks God-wise. He no longer thinks for god. All he thinks of now, is everything that is going on in the earth, and how to get a better look at it. Just think, how many millions of people there are today, that do not even want to talk about God. They would rather tell you that we evolved. No wonder there is no conviction. No wonder evil runs rampant. No wonder our nation has become an incubator for every kind of Satanic perversion there is. Let me analyze it like this, There was a time when the overall society of America was very concerned about how you looked at the Bible. The Bible was recognized, the story of creation, what it told about man being a sinner, these things our school structure adhered to for a few centuries and decades, until a few years back, some wise person got the big idea, I know exactly how to get this thing over real easy: we will get prayer out of the schools. Then we will get the Bible out. People that used to say, I don’t want my child taught that religious hocus-pocus, this and that, now have children that are victimized by the dope addicts. I have read that in certain schools in Chicago, little six year old children going to the public schools, are confronted in the restroom facilities by a bunch of long haired hippy-type characters that belong to a gang. Where are you going? I want to go to the bathroom. Give me a dime, and I will let you go; and if they do not hand over a dime, they lock the door, or stand there and frighten the little fellow half to death. Any democracy that gets to the place it can allow teenage gangs to terrorize little children in schools, needs a drastic change. I thought the other night when I watched the news, and they showed some Russian boys, how they like to look upon the American society with their motorcycles. They do not have Hell’s Angels in Moscow. They would give them a one way trip to Siberia, never to be heard of again. Our democracy has become a mockery in the eyes of God. We are the literal incubators of breeding evil, in the twentieth century. Neither America today, nor the rest of the world are bearing the image and likeness of God. The image quality that God wanted, is not there. You cannot deny the fact that our creation, our origin stems from God; but look what Satan has done within it. He has marred the whole creation with all his perversions of evil. In other words, the God of this world hath blinded their eyes, that they should not believe the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus was none other than the very image of God Himself. That is why Jesus Christ was called the second Adam. He is the quickening, or life giving Spirit. He came to earth and was tempted and tried in every way that you and I are, and He overcame. He became invested with certain divine qualities that enabled Him as the express image of God, to represent God, to give people a chance to see God in His divine nature. That is why, when you read about the life and ministry of Jesus, you read about the qualities and things that God wanted to re-instill in lost humanity. Therefore there is going to be a Church in that image, leave this world one day. There will not be many, but there will be some people who are so sold out to God, that will know how to talk with them. They will think like Him, and they will think for Him. They will speak like Him, and they will speak for Him. They will live like Him and they will life for Him. Because of that, they will be looked upon as the same kind of people the first century Church was made up of. The world hated them, and tried to kill them. They called them all kinds of blasphemous names, but that is the very thing God wants. He wants to renew that image in His redeemed children, so that we have the image of Christ reflecting in and through us. It takes the new birth, which a lot of church people know nothing about; for there is no new birth without the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Some of them can fool most people; but they can not fool the One who will judge them. Jesus was the only person ever born into this world that did not need the new birth experience, to redeem Him from that natural lost state of humanity.

INBRED ATTRIBUTES

We are born into this world, innocent of making wrong choices, but when we grow up, we begin to express a personality, an attitude, a conduct, and a behavior, that is quite contrary to what the Creator ordained in the beginning. That is what Paul meant, “As we have bore the image of the earthy.” We can see then, that our whole natural life that we are born with, is oriented strictly in an earthly realm. Like I was talking to a brother awhile ago, we are selfish, greedy, covetous, stubborn, arrogant, and idolaters. Anything that is contrary to the will of God, that is what we are. Then to all of that we can come in with stealing, lying, murders, and all these other perversions, that have been bred into our human strain of life. That is what the devil is after. If we can see that, then we can understand why in the 6^th chapter, God looked down, and it repented Him that He had made man. Because the image man was reflecting was completely opposite of what God intended. However the Bible says, “But Noah found grace.” There were certain qualities about him that God could use. That is why He preserved him through the flood, even though, in the genetic flow of the law of reproduction, those traits of Satan were in him to some degree. Through Noah and his seed, the whole earth is repopulated, and that brings us to the advent of Christ, with man still on a downward course. Yet within that span of time, God put in effect certain things and ways by how He would foreshadow His plan of redemption. That is why He called Abraham. He was the example of faith. Then from him He pregenerated a nation of people to which He gave the law and the types and shadows of His future plan of redemption, which was perfected at Calvary. Let us go now to the 8^th chapter of Romans. I want to show you how Paul used the word likeness, and how we have to read the word likeness in Genesis 1:26. The biblical language of the bible, how unique it is. As Paul uses the word likeness here, notice what he is pointing to. Romans 8, verse 3. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,”  The law was a mandatory thing to discipline and keep flesh under subjection, to keep fleshly man in his fallen nature from getting completely out of control. That is why, “Thou shalt not, Thou shalt not, Thou shalt not.” It was mandatory. But yet there was a weakness about it. “For what the law could do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness (notice what the word likeness is implying, it is the same thing in makeup) of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” That is why the physical body of Jesus before a mirror and Peter likewise: You would have seen both physical forms of the same substance. That is how we read the word likeness? It is what it is composed of. But then from that comes an image; so when we take that and apply those two words to the inner man, we are dealing with the word likeness, in the same sense that it came from God, some of the same substance. Since our life still comes from God, we can see the fall did not change our likeness, because we still came from God. He is the Creator. However, once we are born by that natural process, within that spirit life, there is an image that is alien, contrary, does not reflect the image of a divine being, at all. Nothing morally or spiritually about it is pleasing to God. Now why would Satan, so far bak, set in motion such a plan?

PAUL’S SURE REVELATION

Go with me to 2^nd Corinthians chapter 4, and I will read the first six verses. Notice Paul’s language here. “Therefore seeing we have this ministry as we have received mercy, we faint not.” Now why would he talk like that? Paul Knows and is confident that God has put something inside of him that is so vital and important to the salvation of the human race, that he is ready to enure all kinds of circumstances in order that he may be able to carry out his part for all mankind’s benefit. That is why he said, “We faint not.” No matter what the hardships may be, no matter what oppositions we encounter, we still do not faint or even think of giving up. “But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, (What a picture of our religious world we live in today. You can look at religion out there. Look at big bishops and evangelists, full of selfishness and greed. The only thing they use the gospel of Jesus Christ for, is an empire of their own. Yet they make it sound like they are doing every bit of it for the kingdom of God. There is no way all of that is going to fit into the plan of God, because it is motivated of greed and selfishness. The motive behind it, tells how much of it God could use.” not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” In other words, if Paul were standing here now, he would say, Take a look. Have I deceived you? Have I used you? Do I owe you anything? He could talk like that, because he had suffered all the things he had endured for their sakes, that they might have access to the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ; so let us see what he is talking about. “But if our gospel be hid, (or misunderstood) it is hid to them that are lost: (God foreknew them, that they never would open their eyes) In whom the god of this world, (Who is he talking about? Satan. That one who came walking into the garden, and began to move on that serpent creature, and brought him under a spell, so that he could use him to bring about what you see today in the world at large. Millions of people say, Do not talk to me about God, I do not believe in that hocus-pocus. Every man and woman today, that talks like that, fulfills exactly what the devil had in mind 6000 years ago. Every man and woman today who will say, even after they have gone to church, “Leave me alone. I have been a Methodist all my life. I will die a Methodist.” Satan had that in mind too. He knew he would bring the human race to such a drastic, dark hour. People without a revelation, without the flow of the Spirit of God, illuminating their inner being, without that image of God being revitalized, do not know God. No wonder Jesus said to Nicodemus, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. There is nothing in him that can understand it. It is mystical. Now as Paul continues, in whom the god of this world, and the god of this world is Satan, because the world, does not mean the planet. It applies to the age, or system. “The god of this world (or age) hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” You hear with your ears, words; but it is how the Holy Spirit takes those words and makes them into a picture, and begins to shine that picture upon the heart of the inner being, that makes the difference. That is why Paul would talk like this. Lest the light, you do not see a natural light, but when you have seen and heard the truth, God turns a light on in your spirit. I was in Methodism. I did not know anything else existed, that was worthy of being anything more than a Methodist. I was not even content being a good Methodist, but once God did save my soul, though still being in the Methodist Church, there was something inside of me that began to hunger for something more. That is why it has to be the Holy Ghost that woos you to God’s plan of salvation. He can save you in a booze joint, but He does not save you for you to stay there, and begin to look for something that will cause your inner being to think different. This trinity church creed stuff, is not the glorious gospel that Paul wrote about. It is a bunch of Satanic junk he cooked up, to do exactly to the Church, what he did to Eve in the garden, through the serpent. As he successfully brought in a half human child of Eve, to start all of mankind’s troubles, he brought in a bunch of tares, got them in as part of the Church, to live on the same life structure that the Church is made up of. They looked fine to the natural eye, but they refused to have their natures changed. Then, sooner or later, a tare will pervert the word of God, which is the gospel. As they perverted the glorious gospel, the light went out, and the Church no longer reflected Jesus. I hope you can see the picture. What Satan did with Eve in the garden; by the time the Church was coming to the closing of the first age, he was already doing the same thing to it, spiritually of course, by planting tares among them. That is why we are in a spiritual warfare. We are literally in a spiritual conflict with human beings. Not that they are your enemies but just that they are people that yield themselves to the spirit of Satan, who is our enemy. They are anti-Christ, anti-truth, anti-light. Your life is in conflict, and just as Abel met his death at the hand of Cain who was the seed of the serpent, so has many saints been spiritually assassinated. Just as Adam came to his hour of testing and failed: Jesus, this second Adam came to His hour, and met the enemy face to face. Then, and then alone did the man who was called Jesus begin to reflect the very characteristics of that divine Jehovah God, the same God that created all things. Why? How? Because the Creator was inside of Him. After the person Himself had been completely tested, and passed the test, defeating the devil by properly using the scriptures, it is written of Him, that “He returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.” To do what? To go do exactly what He was born to do. No wonder He would repeatedly say, It is not I that doeth these works, it is the Father that sent me, or the Father that is in me. The Son was constantly pointing people to recognize and observe something of a higher authority. With visible eyes they could see a human being, but they needed spiritual eyes to recognize what was present when water was turned to wine. When He stopped the funeral procession and raised the dead man back to life, it was not the decision of the Son to do that; it was the Father in Him, that did it. That which is invisible and could not be seen or touched by human senses was observed and seen as it was expressed through the person of Jesus Christ. No wonder Paul could say, “who was the image of God.” With the very Creator Himself doing the works through Him, He had to be reflecting the very image of God. Therefore those apostles preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, who had perfectly submitted to the will of the Father. Verse 5, “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Notice the word terminology Paul closes with, “in the face of Jesus Christ.” That is why, we do not know Him after the fleshly facial features, we have got to know Him by divine revelation as the Holy Ghost takes, and relates the character, the quality, the attributes of that individual, to your inner being. Then when the light of truth breaks forth upon your soul, it just makes you want to jump up and down and say, Hallelujah! Glory to God! Thank God for truth! Think of the millions of people today that will argue over a lot of tradition, and when they are finished, their feeling are hurt, and they have worked themselves up into a frenzy. You will never convince anyone of anything, unless the Holy Spirit draws a picture for them. If the Holy Spirit gets into their hearts, and begins to draw the picture for them, then He will take every word you are saying that is truthful and will make that picture come alive to that human being. Yielding to truth puts your sins under the blood of Jesus Christ, and there is no way Satan can bring that before me. I am clean of that. Then the Holy Spirit seeks to do this, regenerate, revitalize my inner being, to change the stubbornness, the selfishness, and all these other characteristics that are contrary to God.

DYING TO SIN

Let us go to Colossians, chapter 3, verse 5. As Paul begins to write here, he is talking to the believer, on how to grow, wherein this spiritual image becomes more and more a visible reality, finally reaching a reflection, the way God wants it. Listen. “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.” He is talking about the members of this body, because it is through this body the inner being manifests what kind of attitude it has. To mortify, means to put to death. How are we going to do that, unless there is a provision made? Well that is why Christ died. His physical body suffered, and took upon itself, through the ordeal of pain and agony, what you and I ought to have went through, for being what we are. “Mortify (put to death) therefore your members, (reckon them dead) which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” All of these are characteristics of the inner being. Yet these are characteristics which the inner being manifests through the outward body of flesh. “For which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience, (that is the unbeliever.) In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them, (when you were an unbeliever, destined to perish.) But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put o the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” In other words, through this renewing process, the Holy Spirit, which is God Himself, is redeeming you and me. He is the one that created us, but He is also the one that is seeking to renew us and restore us, so that we will reflect the same image that was reflected in the person of His son. That is why I used the base text, Romans 8:28, Everything that happens to you in life, if you are a child of God, was designed to ultimately work for good on your behalf; and God foreordained it before the foundation of the world, through His foreknowledge. Notice now. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Does that mean He wants you and I to literally have the same color of eyes? Come our hair the same way? Is that the image we are to reflect? Not at all. It is how He, the Son, always sought to please the Father, that He wants us to be like. When He sought the Father, with tears, praying, “If it be thy will, grant this cup to pass from me,” in agony, actually sweating drops of blood, in that psychological battle He fought for awhile, then said, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done,” angels came and ministered to Him, and the Father was well pleased with Him. The angels ministered to that part of the human being that is made up of nerves and psychological reflexes, not the inner man that was actually one with the very Creator Himself. Having all that conflict behind Him, He was like a different man. Now He sees beyond the grave and the cross, much different than he had just a few hours earlier. That is why it is also said in Hebrews, “Who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” He could see beyond the suffering. Brothers and Sisters: There was the image of a person that pleased God, and that is exactly what God is seeking to unfold in you and me. There is no way this image reflection of Jesus can be understood in the fullness of what God has willed the church to look like, as long as we are Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, and all of that.

PREDESTINATED REFLECTION

Now then, there is one more part here, as we look at this image, then I am going to end the message. Look at Romans 8:29. “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He, (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brethren.” The apostle Paul had never sat under His ministry, nor walked with Him; but because the Holy Spirit dealt with him, and gave him a spiritual insight and revelation, he could write like this, “Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” This was Paul’s way of saying that the life of Jesus literally brought the light of the glorious God into focus, for all men to see. Therefore they could say, He is God. Otherwise why did Jesus say in St. John 14, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” Not every Jew could say that, could they? But there were some that had walked with Him, that could. It is true, they were walking behind a two legged creature, but it wasn’t the two legs that made Him God to them. It was what was spoken through those lips that registered to their inner being. It was the things He did, that changed the whole scope of their outlook. The translators, in using that English word, person, did not describe the oneness of the Godhead in it’s proper revelation, for God the Father is not a person in the sense that we look for a form. Otherwise, John the Baptist would never have said, “No man hath seen Him at any time.” Jesus then, was not the express image of a person. He was the expressed image of a substance that is totally invisible, and it was the only way that invisible substance could portray His characteristics to lost mankind. He was so inspired of that invisible Spirit and so under control of that sovereign mind, that people who set in darkness saw a great light. What kind of light? It was the light of truth. It lifted people out of their dismal oppression, and gave life to many who had given up, and though there was no hope left. Why? Because he turned the light on. God is the light. But it was how it was illuminated through the person of Jesus Christ, that made Him the express image of His substance, that holy charactership of God, which you cannot draw in a picture. When it is lived in human form, you see it in action. I hope you understand my vocabulary. The same Spirit that Mary conceived Jesus by, in a virgin birth was the Spirit that came on Him at the river, and was the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead, and took Him up to glory. They did not drive nails through Jehovah’s hands. They drove nails through the hands of His Son. It was Jesus the Son that cried out, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me? When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Never has there been a man that walked the face of the earth that reflected God to this world, like this man called Jesus. He did what no other human being could do. Well God took Him up, but then He sent back that same anointing, to do for, in, and through the Church, what He had been doing only through Jesus, enabling the Church to continue what He had started, on earth. The Church carries the responsibility of revealing this great God to lost mankind now. Therefore the Church needs to reflect the same image Jesus reflected. Hallelujah! I am thankful that He is going to have a people that is going to reflect that same image back to Him that Jesus reflected. They will each one know they belong to Jesus, whether they are black, white, brown, red, yellow, or whatever, because they have a pure revelation of all that God has revealed to His Church. They will not be striving with each other for recognition, or position; for they will have grown beyond all of that. That is God’s ultimate goal, in His great plan of redemption, to have His whole family reflecting that same image Jesus reflected. Amen.