Father Divine’s Lecture Given While at the Holy Communion Table of the Peace Center and Nazareth Missions’ Home For The Aged, Church and Training School, 13-17 West 128th Street, New York City, N. Y., Sunday Evening, August 23rd, 1942 A.D.F.D. ,7:30 P.M.
PEACE EVERYONE: At this particular instance I have arisen to say, this is not the last dinner and supper for today; we still have other suppers to serve; and even though we may have the last supper for today around twelve o’clock tonight and the next one around nine o’clock we do not mean to say it will be the last supper, for our suppers have just begun! We are taking it new in your FATHER’S Kingdom and it will be continued throughout all eternity; so those of our visiting guests who desire to, you may go and take part with the next supper at one hundred and twenty-sixth street near seventh avenue!.
It is a common phrase quite often used here in America, “Praise the bridge that carries you over safely!” “Despise not the day of small things and consider the blessings through which they come!”
Wheresoever we assemble together in the unity of the spirit, of mind, of aim and of purpose, there is where the blessings will flow freely. Of course, they are unadulterated wheresoever I Am represented!
We are going to serve another supper shortly. Those who wish to remain here, you may do so if you care to! Those of the immediate guests who have dined with us here, you are welcome to go and break bread with us at the next supper if you care to. There are thousand awaiting us there. I Am sure the place is crowded and I doubt whether we all will be able to get seats. However, you are welcome to go and participate, especially our visiting friends.
In conclusion I would just like to drop this thought for consideration, in keeping with one of our speaker’s statements; we realize, whatsoever ambition you may have, and if you have and ideal in view, if you are persistent in you ambition and determined in your resolve, all things are possible with you even as they are with GOD!
I would like to say to our visiting friends, hearers, and even followers who have not heard and known do not know whichever MY actual work and mission among this people; I recall when men in this part of the country, New York City, in Baltimore, Maryland, Philadelphia and Washington the northeastern part of this country, about thirty, forty and fifty years ago they used to go around soliciting, begging and stealing on the streets; and I recall I rose up in such enthusiasm and such emotional expression, some thought, N doubt, I was somewhat unbalanced in mind. I said, “I Am going south and prove to the world the Gospel can be preached without money and without price!”
Every representative in the ecclesiastical world, even to the “stump-knockers,” Bible-beaters” and street corner preachers, they all claimed that you were obliged to go around begging and stealing, in a way of speaking, to carry the Gospel. I said, “I will present MY Body as a living sacrifice and I will prove to the world conclusively, the Gospel can be preached without money and without price, exactly according to the commission of the Disciples of Jesus of nineteen hundred years ago!”
I said another point too in MY enthusiasm, in MY fanatical and radical emotional expression; I said, “I will prove that Christ died that you might live, and He did not die that you might die and go in the grave and then go to heaven!”
‘The wages of sin is death but the gift of GOD is eternal life!’
I said, I will also prove to the world conclusively, “Out of one blood GOD created all of the nations to dwell upon the face of the whole earth, and I have come to bring them all together! For this cause I will present MY Body as a living sacrifice to that end, and I will not be discouraged until I have accomplished that for which I came!”
The Body a Living Sacrifice 32 Times
Just about the time the Jim Crow law came out in the South I made another trip south to that end to bring MY Body before the destroyers, willing to sacrifice MY life for MY conviction; realizing MY conviction was and is the only hope of the redemption of all humanity! It was unique, it was a sample, it was the example and I presented MY Body thirty-two times as a living sacrifice to that end. I came out unhurt and absolutely unharmed and I stand the same today!
This is just a slight sketch and a reflection of a percent of a fraction of a grain of the seed idea I gave birth to through the sacrifice of MY Body, as a living sacrifice to bring about a righteous government on earth among men! I said, “I will tell people I will go in the worst places that there are as far as segregation and discrimination may be concerned and present MY Body as a living sacrifice to bring about the emancipation of such people that have been mistreated, under-privileged and non-privileged, and prove that
‘GOD so loved the world HE gave HIS Son, that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life!’
I said these points for consideration: “We must let the world know Christ died that we might live; He did not die that you might die and go into the grave. Christ died that your bodies might be saved!”
These points were read to those of the ecclesiastical world and especially they criticized it, even as they do today, but more so at that time apparently ,because they did not see the results of MY mission in evidence and they did not know I actually AM the Master of omnipotency! They did not know I AM mastery over all circumstances and conditions in reality. They did not know I could change the hearts and minds of the children of men and unite them together as one man at Jerusalem according to the plan and purpose of GOD and according to HIS request as handed down through HIS Word,
‘Let there be no division among you!’
They did not know that I could bring the people together and bring an abolition to everything that creates undesirable conditions, confusion, misery, disappointment and failure; but now I Am showing them distinctly I can and I have!
This is the sample, this is the example, but yet it is not demonstrated in its fullness what is actually being done in the hearts and lives of the children of men; for the mental and spiritual work transcends every abstract expression of the demonstration of the personnel of the children of men that I have brought about this great sanitation into expression through!
I know you are cleansed physically. Your faces are not broken out with all sorts of contagions like they were when you first met ME! I have cleansed the personnel of the children of men by transforming them by the renewing of their minds! I have changed them characteristically and dispositionally, hence, physically they are new creatures and they look beautiful! And they express MY spirit, MY love and MY life beautifully as it is manifested within. Aren’t you glad!
Therefore I wish to say in verifying what the professor said: if you have an ideal, if you have an ambition to accomplish what you may have endeavored, if you are persistent in you r ambition, you can and will accomplish it; for the souls of men in accord are embodied in the bodily forms of the children of men; for the spirits of just men in this great assembly, they are made perfect in the sight of the Infinite, and GOD gives them bodies as it pleases HIM!
This is it of which was spoken and of what you now observe. We all shall eventually enjoy just what I have said, in the fullest measure. The fullest measure will be your physical body it will never grow old! That is what I Am talking about!
If anyone should look old, I Am the One who should look old! If anyone should be sick, I Am the One who should be sick among My followers, among all MY following, for I took upon MYSELF your infirmities and I bare your diseases, and by MY stripes you have been healed!
If anyone should reflect any physical imperfection, I Am the One to do it! If anyone should reflect any intellectual imperfection, I Am the One to do it, for I’ve taken upon MYSELF millions’ ignorance and illiteracy and established perfection! GOD is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent without a letter of human education! I thank you.
Father Divine
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