A group of followers
This profound Sermon as given on this occasion by the great Dean of the Universe, GOD Almighty, FATHER DIVINE, is well worth considering, for it points out the cause for many people dying -- all because they have not lived according to the Words of Jesus as given in the great Immortal Sermon on the Mount. Those beautiful Words are your Guide to Life Eternal, if you wish to live.
Thus it pays to walk alone and tell it to Jesus or FATHER alone, for truly does the transposed composition of Christianity say:
'Tell it to FATHER, tell it to FATHER, For HE is a Friend that's well known. For there is no other such a Friend or Brother; tell it to FATHER alone.'
Therefore, if you let your words be yea, yea and nay, nay, and commune in secrecy
with GOD, your FATHER, you will have no occasion to lose your body or go to the
regions of the dead, for HE is your only True Friend and the Giver of Life Eternal,
for we have long since been told that friendship with the world is enmity with
GOD. Therefore, if you want to be one hundred percent in harmony with your GOD,
just live exactly according to the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments,
and let them be a Lamp unto your feet and a Light unto your pathway.
For Thy Words of Spirit and Life, Almighty GOD, we humbly thank Thee!
(The foregoing statements are those of the transcriber, and the following is FATHER'S profound Sermon, with FATHER speaking as follows:)
PEACE EVERYONE! At this instance I AM calling your attention to something of vital importance; while My attention was called to someone, as they called My attention to them on a point that they thought was commonly rehearsed, customarily spoken among those of the members and followers, and when someone asked them, "Are you a cooperator?" they said, "Yes", or words to that effect, not knowing that they were jeopardizing their lives. That's why I said very explicitly, both thru the Scripture and in the Gospel -- made it quite plain in the Sermon on the Mount where I said:
'When you do your alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do.
'Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth, otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is heaven.'
The Peace Mission Movement, as well also as that of our Government, is supposedly
founded upon the Ten Commandments. I often say, the Ten Commandments and the
New and the Old Testaments with the Constitution and its Amendments and the Declaration
of Independence. If we live these Fundamental Principles and put them into expression
in all sincerity, conscientiously and evangelically, there is life in these words
that are spoken.
Therefore, you have been requested to study the Bible, not necessarily to interpret the Bible, but to study the Bible the same as you study your alphabet in your infancy. In other words, as you did do it in your infancy until you could commit your alphabet to memory. You could rehearse them accurately and at times a good many could say their alphabets backwards. That was a simple lesson, but you did not get the interpretation necessarily of what each letter meant, but you committed them to memory and apparently learned them as to be able to use them for higher education. Aren't you glad! ("So glad, GOD Almighty!" came the happy response.)
But after you learned your alphabet and could use your alphabet expertly, you could learn to read and write and spell by the same alphabet. So it is with learning the Scripture, both the Scripture and the Gospel, in short, the Bible; the Old and the New Testaments upon which our Church, yea, our Peace Mission Movement is founded. Hence, if you learn to know the Scripture as it reads and be able to reiterate it, it will bring to your memory and consideration what you should do in many instances.
So these words are well worth considering. The Peace Mission Movement, as afore said, is founded on the very Sermon Jesus gave on the Mount, the Sermon that was given on the Mount, and also the Ten Commandments, and these Scriptures and the different Gospels of the New Testament, are well worth considering! But if you would take cognizance of it as you have read it, and read it and live it and express it, you could live forever!
The Words I speak to you, they are Spirit and they are Life! If you would read the Sermon on the Mount in its entirety as much and as perfectly as you learned your alphabet and would be able to rehearse it and speak it volitionally verbatim and commit it to memory and be expresser of it in deeds and in actions, there would not be any way therein for you to stumble! As I said, where it reads:
'When thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee . . .'
And definitely it says:
'Let not your left hand know what your right hand doeth, otherwise you have no reward . . .'
And when you see them dying, you may know there is some cause for their death!
If it was only that, if you have ever told anyone about you giving the Salvation
Army a nickel or any other alms in the way of servitude to GOD and to your spiritual
unfoldment, if you die, you know the cause of it!
I have set before you the way of Life and I have told you definitely how you should live and what you should do! Therefore, if you build upon the Sermon on the Mount, you will not have an occasion to stumble and falter nor fear. I do not see you in these different audiences getting down on your knees praying, shouting to the top of your voice, asking GOD to send blessings down! I believe you adhere to that Prayer very explicitly, for you have received from the Prayer you have prayed, the desired results in a great measure.
But how about giving alms in the selfsame chapter? The Sixth Chapter of Saint Matthew! You think it is a great thing to have a great name! "I gave so much to the Abyssinian Baptist Church! I gave so much to this church and the other church and other charities to be considered!" Trying to make people think you have done so much for Righteousness! That which you have thought you were getting honor for, you were jeopardizing your life and causing your life to be subject to death, because I said:
'Otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.'
I thought to call your attention to that fact. And as I spoke of it, it was said,
as was mentioned in a letter of correspondence no doubt it would be critical
or undesired to be publicized; and I said at the time, I said, yes, but if it
is not publicized, I would want everybody to know why a good person dies! If
they never did anything but that, if they violated that Commandment, in giving
alms and letting the left hand know what the right hand doeth, if they only did
that, I would be glad for others to know why you die and the cause and the reason
you would have to go!
And when you die for violating any of the Ten Commandments and for violating any of the Sermon on the Mount, the request GOD made of you in and through the Sermon on the Mount, when you failed to live according to same, and you die, you will know why! So that is what I said.
I said it would be good for everybody to know. If it was only that, if a person said, "I have done so much; I have done this, that or the other", for any Righteous Cause, Church or any charitable Cause, if you say you did it, then if you die, if you haven't done anything else wrong, that would be why you die!
So it is good to know the Scripture. I have taught it definitely and explicitly as well as I have taught you about not praying as the hypocrites do and as the Pharisees do, to be seen and heard by men. I have taught it! The praying situation, the praying custom, the praying tradition, is not customarily demonstrated in your actions and in your words publicly; therefore, we do not see you getting down on your knees under My Jurisdiction, praying, shouting to the top of your voices: "O LORD, come down here right now and do this, that and the other," because I have taught you better! I have taught you to pray to the LORD in secret, and HE that seeth in secret, Himself shall reward you openly!
But you do not seem to consider it is just as much and more essential to do all of your good deeds in secret and not let anyone know anything about it, for otherwise it is explicitly declared,
'You have no reward!'
See the Mystery? I AM talking about what Jesus said, even though you have declared
I AM HE! To those who have not declared ME to be, I AM still talking about what
Jesus said, and it is applicable to you -- those who have not considered ME to
be HE or HE to be ME; it is applicable as well as it is to those who claim to
know ME and have declared that I AM HE!
Those Words are applicable to the members of the Peace Mission Movement and their representatives and they are applicable to all of those under Christendom; for truly all Christianity or Christendom was founded upon the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus gave it and it is applicable to all Christianity, whether you be Christians as being termed Catholics, or Christians as being termed Protestants, Christians as being termed Methodist, Baptist or any other sect or denomination! Those Words are applicable to you as well as they are to those of Mine, and they are as applicable and operative for you as Mine, as well as they are for those who do not believe as you do! Just the SAME! The Words CHRIST spoke in the Sonship Degree were the Words that were handed down from that time to you and to ME, as I might say -- as it appears to be.
Then I say, how does any person under Christendom expect to live, and not live according to the Sermon on the Mount? Whether you be of the Peace Mission Movement as followers of Mine, or be of any other religious abstraction under Christendom, the Words that Jesus said, they are applicable to you and to your life, and that is what is required of you! But I desired you to know definitely why a person dies! SOME CAUSE FOR IT! If it's not one thing, it's another! Why should anyone die when I declared:
'I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life!'
You should never fret nor worry about dying! Just live the Life and keep the
Faith and be the same at all times and you will not have an occasion to sicken
and die! But if it was only the Word, that one Commandment as given in the Sermon
on the Mount, the Sixth Chapter of St. Matthew, you would know why they die,
if that was the only thing! You may see some people and you might say, "My,
they were so good, and this, that and the other; I don't see why they died!" Well,
if they did any of those things in violation to that which was requested of them
by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, you may know that is why they die! Then
it's nothing for ME to be sorry for! See the Mystery?
So these thoughts are well worth considering. So build upon this foundation and from now henceforth, if you will try to hide anything you think you do good, and not let anybody know it as to what you do, but expose yourself as the sinners do or as they should do, by confessing your sins before men, that they may see and know what you have done, and glorify your FATHER which is in Heaven!
I did not mean to take up so much time, from that point of view, but it was just a thought I brought up, because it was something spoken, and as I was reading the letter that was important, great to be considered; but someone said something like that in the letter relating to something of that sort, and someone thought maybe -- to speak of those things in an public press, it may not be justifiable or it may not be plausible; but I thought and I said, well, I would be glad for everybody to know why good persons die! If it is only that, if they did or said that and made themselves subject to death, I want them to know!
Now, from henceforth, if you will read the Gospel, and read the Scripture as it is written, and learn it verbatim, it will be advantageous to you and guard against those erroneous statements and acts and deeds that will tend to lead erroneously and cause others to stumble!
I need not say more at this instance, but that was the thought I conveyed. While Mr. Everett was speaking, I thought of how you will be tempted on every hand and you can be tried, but if you are persistent in your ambition and determined in your resolve, you will live the Life of CHRIST, which is the Life of GOD. And if peradventurely, you have endeavored to live exactly according to the Life and Teaching of CHRIST, and others try to condemn you and try to convict you and bring you under condemnation -- subject to death by not doing what CHRIST said, for if they may cause you not to do what CHRIST said, you have made yourselves subject to death by living after the flesh when it comes to something that He has told you to sacrifice.
'Except you hate your brethren, your sisters, your mother and your father and all you have, even your own life, you cannot be My disciple.'
Hence, when they try to get you to think differently, they are trying to kill
you, even though they may be ignorant of it! But if you take their instruction
and their leading and bring yourself into condemnation by what they are teaching
and what they say, they are your worst enemies, as said the Scripture:
'The worst enemy is that of your own household.'
I plainly said in that Message as read, that which is required of MOTHER, is
required of you! It is wonderful! If someone had not made such sacrifices, you
could not be enjoying the splendor and a-full and a-plenty that cometh by the
sacrifices they made, such as that, as afore said, the sacrifice that MOTHER
made! Why? Because if you were living in the flesh and if everybody lived in
the flesh, lived in races, creeds and colors and families, you would be as millions
are out there today, living in misery, disappointment and failure and would have
no success and no pleasure and would not have Life Eternal! Would not have the
hope of Life Eternal! That is what I AM talking about!
So these thoughts are well worth considering, and I hope you all will consider them. Whatsoever is required of MOTHER -- in other words, whatsoever was required of MOTHER to inherit this Stand with ME, the Same is required of you if you desire to Stand with ME! "Yes, but that was different!" The Same Thing! The same thing! It's wonderful! If you are not willing to pay the price, you are not worthy of this happy and perfect life and the results that this life brings! I thank you.
PEACE EVERYONE! Those of us who have dined will arise, take the back seats and back stand; pass out and pass on and allow others to come and dine.
They are a little late, just about one hour. Six o'clock diners may come right in. The Table is all set up, and dine if you have not dined. Although a good many of you, no doubt, have dined three or four times, and maybe you want to dine again. So long as you can donate for what you eat, it is all right. I thank you.
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