Fire Turned Inward Becomes A Devil

I've been kindly promoted. I was allowed to be on your level yesterday, but it's spreading to go up higher. Today, I don't know whether I like it so well, but still.

Very kind of them to arrange, made this more convenient arrangement for us. We'll just have a moment of waiting on God, shall we? Together. We're always waiting on Him in our spirits.

But when we're together, it's good to wait on Him for a moment in a sense of togetherness, isn't it? Thank you, Lord. We're here by your invitation and your grace. It isn't we who've drawn nigh to you, it's you to us.

And you have your ways of speaking to our hearts and our minds, through your spirit and through your word. So once again, this is an hour when we are gathered around no human teacher. But you aren't yourself.

Let us hear your voice. And you just fix into each of us whatever is from you for each. Thank you, Lord.

In Jesus' name. I suppose I haven't to shout so loud up here, is that so? Are you hearing all right? Fine. Now, those of you who were here at our morning session in the dining room yesterday, may remember that we're seeking to spend these five consecutive sessions, which have now been shifted, the remainder, I suppose, to the afternoons, on seeking to examine together the structure of living, the structure of life.

There are sessions of investigation, examination, and indeed consideration as to whether what we're saying is based on the revelation of God's word. If it isn't, throw it out and come and correct me. Because that's the basis of what we're saying.

So we're seeking to have an overall consideration of the meaning of living. If you like, the meaning of human living. Because it's humanity which obviously interests us, we being part of it.

So we were starting to answer, or seek to answer, three questions. One is, what is life? And then if we have some answer to that, how do we live it? And then if we have some answer to that, why do we live it? And we're on the first of those, and shall not get beyond it, today. We saw yesterday that the Bible gives us a simple answer.

Life is one person. I am the life. God in the flesh said that.

So there's only one life, there's only one person in the universe. That's where we started. Only one person in the universe.

And none of us, and nothing, can find its focus unless it is some derivative of this one. Something which is part of the one. So we're starting here at this foundation.

There's nothing which isn't the one in action by some means, positively or negatively. It's one person. And we saw that Jesus, as final authority, made to me an ultimate statement about him.

When he said, God is spirit. He may be much more, but that's not what we're considering now. It's what Jesus said, God is spirit.

And the significance of that is that spirit is the within person. Now we don't know the universe, what there is without within. They're only three-dimensional terms.

They're not really in the fourth dimension at all. Tommy taught us just a little about that. But from our point of view, we say that spirit is a within person.

We know that because we're spirits. We're human spirits, and the human spirit is this self we are. This inaccessible, unapproachable self that just is, that's all.

And we saw then that a spirit is meaningless unless it has attached to it a spontaneous form of expression, means of expression. And our bodies and our souls, our emotions, our reasons, are our means by which we express our inner self. It's in a relationship of unity by which we just live spontaneously.

Therefore, this one person in the universe who is spirit, if he's to be meaningful, if he's to be manifested, must have a means of expression. And the Bible reveals that the whole universe, or we say, if you like, our world, is his means of expression. Therefore, we have in a sense relocated God.

And we've taken him out of what in our three-dimensional terms we might say someone up there. We said, no, he's a within person expressing himself through. Every single thing, therefore, is he expressing himself, not something he makes, something he is.

Of course, I'm asked the question, and some friend kindly sent me a little note, as they should do, and said, could you explain the difference between that and pantheism? The difference between that and pantheism is pantheism means the thing is God. We say a thing is a form of God. Now, I don't say your body is you.

It's pretty close to it. I say your body is a form you take. You are a person who expresses himself through your body.

So, you're not exactly your body, although you're pretty close to it. Now, that's the sense in which everything is a form of God, it's expression of him. He is the inner person expressing himself by this.

Therefore, we don't worship the thing. We worship the person of which the thing is a manifestation. Of whom the thing is a manifestation.

We then went on to see that he, as revealed to us, being a person, but the heartbeat of this universe is a person, thinking, willing, living, acting person. A person can't manifest personality through things. Because things are limited, personality is unlimited.

Therefore, the only way by which a person can express personality is by persons. So, now we see why we are derivatives, but we are persons. We see why we are persons.

The only reason for the existence of persons is to be spontaneous expressions of deity. Only when you and I are spontaneously, naturally, know how to be manifestations of God, are we real persons. That's why we took as our key statement from the scriptures for this series.

What John said, as he is, so are we. In this world, not so ought we to be, we are. So, this is not a becoming life, it's a being life.

You become to be. We've got to learn what it is, how we have become, then we leave our becoming behind and we are being. As he is, so are we.

The perfect proof, again, of this fact, of course, was Jesus himself on earth. Because he was continually referring to the Father. He was the one who introduced this one by that wonderful name, or practically introduced him to the world.

Once or twice in the Old Testament he's called Father, but rather incidentally. But this was the favourite name by which God, Jesus, spoke of him, as the Father. And you remember how he was continually saying, the Father sent me.

I do what the Father still tells me to do. I please the Father, I honour the Father, and so on and so on. Now, because we are three-dimensional people, and see one person outside another, that immediately conveyed to the disciples a person outside Jesus.

And they took it to some mysterious way, he must have had some relationship with somebody up here. So finally, at his last wonderful conversation with him around the supper table, he said he was going to the Father. Now, of course, to them that immediately introduced in geographical terms.

That must be some ascent up here. And he kind of ticked them up to make a few responses. He did that quite often.

And so he said, of course you know the way, knowing they didn't know the way. And they said, of course we don't know the way. Now, straight away he said, I am the way.

Now, immediately it takes you to another dimension. So ways in the ultimate aren't up here, down there, a person. That's all there is in the universe, a person.

I am the way, this person. We're the way. They took it farther, until finally they asked him the question he wanted them to ask, we may say.

One of them said, all right, then show us the Father, and that will suffice us. You know the answer. He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

And they say, well, that's enough. But he said, of course, it's like this, put shortly. The words I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, I'm over here, I'm a real human self, he said.

I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me. He said, you've got it all wrong, he never was up there, he's always here. The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

And so the words I've been speaking have been his words. And my thoughts have been his thoughts, and my deeds have been his deeds. We live in a, in other words, in a unification which has become so perfectly natural to me that what I'm saying is he's saying it.

What I'm doing is he's doing it. Now, the importance of what he said was this. He straight away turned in that John 14, 15, 16 chapters to them, and said, now I'll tell you why I've come.

He called God's spirit, this within person. Now he said, the spirit is to be in you. That's why I've come.

And he said, just as this person, as spirit, is joined to me, to my human spirit, and we're one, so my functioning is he functioning, so this person is to be joined to you, so you functioning is he functioning. Meaning of life. As we say, humanity is true humanity where it's a spontaneous expression of deity.

And that's exactly what happened at Pentecost. Pentecost is a fixed awareness of a unity. You've had your Pentecost if it's produced for you a fixed awareness of an indissoluble unity, you and God are one person.

And you've come to a new consciousness, a new awareness of this fact. That God and you are one person, and you don't have to find him, don't have to see him, you just live, and that's you living as he living. Up to Pentecost, their concept of God was external.

Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended. From Pentecost, their concept of God was internal. They didn't enter into the true meaning of reality.

The proof of that is how they presented God or Christ in their letters. Thus Paul said, he said, I'll take to the very heart of what I'm telling all the churches, and I'll suffer for telling them. This is what the heart of it.

He said it's been a hidden secret, it's not a new thing. He said it's been a secret or a mystery, a mystery is something which those know to whom it's been revealed. He said this secret has been hidden from ages and generations, it's always there, a hidden thing is always there, someone found it.

Now it's come wide open in Jesus Christ. He says this hidden thing is Christ in you, not Christ for you, not Christ around you, not Christ by you, Christ in you, in the hope of glory. And he made the perfect analysis, as far as I know, that there have been made of true humanity.

And that is in his great statement in Galatians 2.20. Where he said this, I've been crucified with Christ, that's what we'll pick up later on, that's the old illusory independent self. The consequence of the four, the old illusory independent self. This independent self-acting self-reliant self, I've been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.

I'm a redeemed person, here I am alive, wait a minute, nevertheless I live, no he has to correct himself. No it isn't yet not I, but Christ lives in me. So this life is basically not two together, it's not two side by side, it's not God assisting me, it's God replacing me.

This life is replacement, nevertheless I live, no no, it isn't I really living, it's Christ living. So the real Paul is Christ and the real you is Christ. This is a paradox, it cannot be put, paradoxes are final truths which appear contradictory to us.

And will only come out in their final unity in the next dimension. Down here they have to remain a contradiction. So Paul has to correct himself, he says I do live, that's obvious, no I don't live, Christ lives.

That's the joke of life which we live, the paradox. You'll never get beyond that. But then went on, this is the point, he didn't stop there.

This statement of his has as it were three terms. One is the old independent I, out, crucified with Christ. Here I am, I'm a real person, but no it isn't I, it's really he.

So the one who's really living it is he. Now he says, having said that, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me. Now the life I now live in the flesh, I live, a great big strapping I came back.

God wants great big liberated I, God doesn't want dead selves, he wants living selves. He wants people who are full of self. The life I now live in the flesh, bang bang bang, I live by the faith of the Son of God.

By the faith of the Son of God means by the awareness that Christ is what he is to me. Who loved me, gave himself for me. So those are just a few evidences from Christ and the disciples of this relationship which we created.

Where humanity is a spontaneous natural expression of deity, manifestation of deity. We then went on to take a glimpse at answering the important question, if this is the only person in the universe, when the whole universe is merely a formless expression of the one person, we'd better find out what kind of person he is. It's a little important.

And of course that's revealed to us, as we said in that further three worded statement. Jesus has said God is spirit, John said God is love. And we took a slight first glance at love.

And we discovered that love is ultimate. Meaning, and we're talking about ultimates, means this. Really our life is living other people's lives.

We are really our neighbour. Love your neighbour as being yourself. And the evidence we had of that, in the form of an analogy, was Jesus saying it was like bread or like water.

Because bread is something which has given up its own life in a cornfield and become you. He says I'm a person like that. My life is not my own life, it's being you.

And we looked back and we saw that the whole creation manifests that to us. I'm leaning my hand on a desk which is once a tree. The real meaning of this life is to become a desk for me.

And everything, every created thing, its real meaning is to cease to have its individual life and become something for me. And the real meaning of our lives is to be something for others. But it must be spontaneous, it must be natural.

It isn't the kind of thing you put on with a big lot of effort. It just becomes you. It must be that.

So we saw this as life, this one, the kind of person he is. And yet it's such a relationship to us that we're a spontaneous expression and manifestation of him. This is the meaning of our lives.

And the actual fact of our lives, not just the meaning. And that it is, not should be. As he is, so are we.

We saw then that this brings us down to our central problem. The problem of humanity. We may say the privilege of humanity, but also the problem of humanity.

And that is the infinitely delicate question of freedom. A free person can only express freedom through free persons. And a free person, this person has made a voluntary choice.

And loves there to fulfill his choice. Therefore, if God was going to be a free God through free people, free people must be free. And freedom must be one and never compelled.

We saw that freedom has perhaps a stronger basis than we sometimes think. We sometimes regard freedom maybe as something that won't be anything. No.

Freedom is the ability of a human personality to make a choice, a right choice. And then his freedom is in the development of his choice. Life is built on making right choices.

That's what consciousness is, the ability to choose this or that. And the whole of life, all the way through, is the capacity of making right choices. And then we express our freedom in the development of our choices.

So we explain on a simple human illustration. A young man may choose to be a doctor. It may take him seven years to become a doctor.

Having done so, he's made his basic choice. The rest of his life probably is in the development of medicine. He doesn't suddenly begin developing carpentry or plumbing or something.

His freedom is developing his medicine. And so on through life. And we saw the most important fact of all, that because God is the first self, he's the first one, he's the person in the universe, the first self, a self is only a conscious self if it has the capacity to make the right choice and makes it.

And the fundamental choice a self makes, a self being compiled of desire, of love, love is desire, being compiled of desire, how will it fulfil its desires? What is the either or for a self? Will I fulfil my desire by having everything and everybody for myself? Or will I fulfil my desires by myself being for everybody everything? Will I be a person, myself, who will satisfy desires, everything and every person is for me? Or will I be a person, I'll satisfy my desires by me being for everybody and everything? And the wonder of the revelation is God has eternally been that latter one. That God made equivalent to a choice. We can't exactly use that word of the eternal person, as they say, you have to use temporal language of eternal facts.

So it says God cannot lie. So you surprisingly come against the almighty God by something he can't do. Because you cannot be a self without a choice.

And this is the fundamental choice. So thank God there is in the very basis of the nature of God a fixation. And that fixation is he cannot be a self-seeker, a self-magnifier, a self-desirer, because a liar is that.

A liar is a person who is protecting himself at other people's expense. It is a form of self-interest, self-security, self-seeking, God cannot be that. He can only be a self-giver.

Now there isn't a single thing in the universe God ever has, ever could do, which isn't some form of self-giving love. All God's liberty is in the development of his fundamental choice. His fundamental choice is to be a self-giver.

All his liberty is in the development of that choice. Now, we come down to us humans. Now there must be this infinite delicacy of freedom.

Throughout our lives we are based on the making of a free choice. And there is this fundamental choice with us. Many other choices, fundamentals, are bound here.

Shall I basically be, now, a human who is created as part of the living God? So the normal situation is, the human as part of the living God is simply part of a self-giver. And there is a sense in which this shouldn't arise, or should arise and be settled, very quickly. He should be, because as part of God we should be expression of God.

So we should be just spontaneously self-givers and lovers. But because we are free, it is possible for us to be the other. The Bible reveals to us that before the human creation was, there was another who took this choice.

And brought into being a dimension, a kingdom which never should have been known. He has given us in the Bible, under the name of Lucifer. Now, we all know the marvels of prophecy.

We are detecting a little of that in the examination of the personality of these days, such as in ESP and clairvoyance and so on. The capacity for seeing beyond what is visible. We have been talking a little about that.

So we understand that all through the Bible there has been prophecy, when men have had a burning message for their generation. Suddenly, in the midst of the proclamation of their burning message, Isaiah or Jeremiah or someone, lights burst in them and they jumped inside and they have seen the Messiah coming. Or something happening in the future.

We all know those great passages where the Old Testament prophesies and foresees the coming of Christ. Just now and then, it wasn't foreseeing, it was back sight. And the veil tore open behind, they got a glance way back.

And there are two striking passages when we are given a sight of this first created being who made the wrong choice. He is called Lucifer. The two passages are Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.

There are other passages which speak of him. Jesus called him commonly Satan. He was first of all Lucifer, of course, meant light bearer, not light.

He used to be the expression of the light of God, light bearer. But being a free person, and for certain reasons, if you read those two passages, he made the choice, a person could be, he would be the opposite. He'd be a self-lover and a self-seeker.

What he did was open up a hidden part of a self, the God self which never should have been known. That's where hell is. Hidden part of God's self which never should have been known.

To explain what I mean, the Bible speaks of God as fire and light. Hebrews 12 says our God is a consuming fire. 1 John says God is light.

Now, you can't have light without fire, but they're a bit different in their effects. Fire, as he said, is consuming, left to itself the sun. Consuming, if you're there, it's self-consuming.

Now, actually, we actually know today that we, of course, it's not in the scriptures, that there's a process of dying to itself which happens in the sun, which produces that by which, which is the light by which we live. There's a process by which the sun, having made hydrogen atoms which fuse, we're seeking now the fusion of the hydrogen atom. If we get that, we get illimitable power, because everything nearly has hydrogen in it.

The fusion of the hydrogen atom in the heat of the sun means it's transmuted into a helium atom. In that process, it's released energy which is our light. So it comes out of a kind of giving up of itself by the sun.

And so, in this respect, coming out from the sun is something which blesses and gives light and life to the world. So that which is by itself left to itself a consuming fire, when it goes outwardly, becomes a blessed light. Now, this is what a self is.

There is a fire root in God. All the amazing energies of the universe burn in God. If those that turn inward, God's a devil.

They never turn inward. In the birth of his son, in the begetting of his son, they turn outward, and they became the first stream from this fiery self of self-giving light and love and blessing. The same as the sun streams down like that upon us.

Now, the point for us is, we are all in that fire root. Every human being is in that fire root. We're a fire.

You know you're a fire. If not, you'd better find out. We're a fire in our passions.

We're a fire in our angers. We're a fire in our... It's glorious to be a fire. I don't want to be a stone.

I wish to be a burning fire. Much more fun. We're part of the fire.

Now, the tragedy of fallen humanity is remaining in the fire which consumes itself. Burns inwardly. Now, that's what a choice of self for itself is.

In other words, what Lucifer did, he opened up a dimension of self which never should have been known. A dimension which is in God. The fire root is in God.

And as a free person, being created out of God's fire root, with all the fires of personality, Lucifer as a person says, I'm not going to be part of the self-giving God. I'm going to be a self-loving self. I'm going to be myself to have everything for my own ends and my own aims.

And he began the fires of hell. The fires of hell burn inside you. Now, that's what happens afterwards.

The Bible says so. The Bible says, the tongue is a fire set on fire of hell. So, hell's inside you.

When it comes out of your tongue as it shouldn't come, that's hell. And you know it. We burn with wrath, burn with lust, burn with anything.

It's fires. They're awful consuming, aren't they? Thank God they're consuming, because they drive us back to Jesus. But they're consuming.

And the horror of a humanity is to be at the fires of hate, and the fires of fear, and the fires of sex, and the fires of alcohol, and the fires of curses, and to know what to do with them except being burned by them. And they go on burning. Sometimes, we humans, when we're beyond being able to fulfill some of our burning desires, we can't fulfill them, but we keep on burning.

That's hell. To be filled with desires you maybe get too old to fulfill, but you keep on burning. That's hell.

So, there's hell, all right, and hell is in God. Hell is a hidden part of God which never should have been known, never was known in God. Because God is forever.

His Son has been a light. Through Jesus Christ, through the Spirit, out to the universe. But the fearfulness of being a free person, the privilege and fun and marvel of being a free person is our potential freedom.

It's a great fun being free, isn't it? It's a great fun going and walking on the beach when you want to, whether there's a meeting here or not, isn't it? Great fun being free. Look at the freedom, look at the wonderful, what a wonderful world. Look, look, look, look, freedom.

It's wonderful. You ask me, I'm not a cow and always chew grass. Freedom is to produce something which improves on grass.

Freedom is wonderful. Freedom is a thrill, an illimitable potential. It's based on great responsibility.

It's a limited potential linked to fundamental responsibility. Because the first thing about freedom is its choice. The first thing about freedom is making the right intelligent choice.

And then freedom is the development of the choice. That's how we get this person. Here is the creation of hell.

Not creation, the production of what never should have been done. The origin of evil isn't difficult, it's in God. It's something of God which is a misuse of a being.

It's a misuse of the fire root from which all cells are made. So it's part of God still. It's a misuse.

Thank God its misuse has painful consequences. Thank God, because that's God's mercies. Because I hope we can get our way back then.

Quite plain in the Bible. That there was a person like this. Sorry some people don't believe that these days.

I don't know quite how you believe in the Holy Spirit, if you don't believe in the evil spirit. If I believe a spirit's a person, God's a person, and this person can live in me, and you're a person, you're a spirit, I can't believe another creature's a spirit. Why should I be so crabby, I can't believe there's another one as well.

And certainly Jesus did. Jesus said of Peter, Get thee behind me Satan. Well Peter wasn't Satan, he was just a jolly fellow who got a little invasion for five minutes.

But you and I get some invasions for five minutes too. And Satan, awful, awful word, isn't it? At that lovely last supper, Satan entered into him. That was Judas.

Satan entered into him. That was the Holy Ghost. And I think we'll find as we go on, how without Satan, without this spirit, you can't get the focus of redemption clear.

At least I think so, because I perceive it that. Now we're all right, we're taking this. This one.

And we're seeing therefore he's a part of God, what we might call the negative part of God, because he's going to the negative. He's brought into the open the basis of a nature of God, a nature by which never should have been known, on the basis of the self-centeredness, the fire. Now we get the creation of man.

That's a beautifully delicate presentation of the history of the creation of man. Why? The God of Eden, Adam and Eve. Because first of all, it's essential that God has people who found their potential.

God doesn't want a bunch of kids. They're very nice, but they won't last as long as continuous kids. He wants adults.

An adult knows his potential. Now the whole meaning of humanity is a humanity who discovers its potential. Potential can be a means of the expression of God, of self-giving love.

But to find your potential. We've found our potential through the fall. Well, thank God, we find it anyhow.

We know something about the powers that we have, thank God. We need to know them. We mustn't say that humanity had to fall to find its potential because one person didn't.

But he had to find his potential, and that's Jesus. It's very interesting to watch Jesus at 12 years of age. He found a tremendous potential.

This little boy at 12 years of age had an insight into the scriptures and the meaning of things which staggered those old professors. And there he sat in the temple hearing them and asking questions. He said, what on earth is this kid? Who is he? What does he know? And here was the potential of the, you see, as he says he grew, the Bible says Jesus Christ grew in wisdom and stature.

He grew as we did. And the larger revelation came to him. And here was some of his, the potential coming out through him.

Of course, the key with Jesus was an angry parents. The angry parents to him said, I don't know what it is looking about for you. What business you got here? Come back home.

Now Selfworth said, no, thank you. I'm as good as any of these professors. Good by you, I'm here.

I'm an ordained minister now, soon to be a PhD. No, no, no. He was subject unto them.

He was subject. His potential was to be for the world, for God, not for self-inflation. He never gave way an inch.

18 more years hammering nails in. I had the use of one of his tables. I haven't had a chance.

I expect he made good ones. And all that time learning. He was filled with the scriptures.

Filled with the scriptures. Probably, I think it's satisfactory to say, the true revelation didn't come until the dove came on him. Because then he said, the spirits anointed me.

I'm that person. He never had the final confirmation, or at least he hadn't been given the moment in time, I don't know which. But the devil, who was himself, the voice said, that's you.

And they went out. And you watch how Jesus knew his potential. The amount of temptation tells us that.

Now, Satan tempts us on our level. Each of us attempted at a different level. Satan couldn't come to you and say, look here, if you'll give yourself to me, I'll give you the whole world, because you're not fit to have the world.

You couldn't manage the world? Then the world would soon kick you out. There are very few people in history who could feel like that. Maybe Hitler thought so.

There are few men in history who have thought they had capacity to handle the world. You've got to be pretty big to be that. Jesus knew he was that.

And so Satan could tempt him on that. He said, come my way and you'll have the world in a few years. No, he says, I'll have the world another way round.

I'll have the world for eternity. Not for a few times and then get poisoned by my son or something. But you see, you see what I mean.

The development of potential. Now we've found our potential through the fall. Thank God you've found your passions.

Thank God you've found your ambitions. Thank God you've found your mental capacities and so forth. Because this is the material for God.

This is the fire root which can now be the means of the light going out. But of course we've found the wrong way round. We've found through the fall.

The fall is an infinitely delicate fact of history. Why delicate? Because God had to bring Adam and Eve to an adult choice. And had to give them the chance of coming to an adult choice, making a right choice.

So the way God handled it was this. He put them somewhere where they could see nothing but his goodness. He streamed his goodness on them.

All the beauty of the garden and everything else. So they knew they had a wonderful heavenly father. They had some relationship with him.

Presumably more external. Which is an illusion really, but I mean it looked like that. So the Old Testament records present it to us like this.

So they knew the kindness and goodness of the father. But he said there's just one thing in the middle here you mustn't take. There were two things in the middle.

One they took no notice of. There was a tree of life. And the next door, because it says in the record they were both in the middle of the garden.

Next door to it was a tree of knowledge of good and evil. Don't touch that one now. Everything else, here you are.

Everything you can have. Don't touch that now. Now this is how they found themselves.

How? By temptation. Temptation is most useful. Thank God for temptation.

It makes us know what we can be, thank God. It can be for God instead of being for flesh and devil. It means you're a pulsing human if you're tempted.

Life is response to environment, I believe. So the temptation produced that. The temptation touched all those levels.

The temptation became something that says it looked pleasant to eat. It aroused their physical appetites. It was beautiful to look upon.

It began to arouse their acquisitive powers which can come through the eye. And something which can make them wise. It aroused their capacity for ambition and improvement and development and so on.

Quite right, quite right. We're meant to have all that. That wasn't the problem.

Those were the outward, the stimulation of the outward forms of man, what we call our humanity. But we deepen our humanity. Inside our minds, inside our appetites, inside our capacities, there's ourselves.

Now here is the key point. Now an independent self can only love itself. This never should have been.

It never should have been. It should have been, or at least we may say there should have been some means by which, as I say, the choice was immediately made, which had been spontaneously part of which our independent selves delighted to be dependent in the sense of being the means by which we could be forms of God's self-giving love. That's what it's meant to be.

An independent self can only be self-loving. That's why we've got to be saved. Everyone else has got to be saved.

We've got to be redeemed. We've got to be born again. An independent self can never be self-loving, anything but self-loving.

That's why Paul puts the difference later on. He says the difference between the highest independent self and the divine self is this. He says the highest independent self can love because it's made of love.

So it says this, Romans 5 says this, Scarcely for a righteous man would one die, speaking of us humans. In other words, scarcely for a righteous man would one die if a fellow is self-sufficient. I don't know why I should doubt.

Let him die for himself. Peradventure for a good man, some would dare to die. I'm quoting Paul.

In other words, if something appeals to me, my children, my family, my country, well, I'd give a life for it. A human will give his life for that which he approves of. God gives his life for that which he disapproves of.

A human's love is conditional. God's love is unconditional. God doesn't care about himself.

He died on a cross for us. He doesn't care. And when that gets us, we don't care.

That's not human. That's superhuman. That's the difference between God and man.

Man's love can go to the point of approval. When we disapprove, God's love is unconditional, thank God. Oh, he shouldn't be inside this.

It says, For God commends his love towards us. It's in the same passage. When we get sinners, Christ died for us.

When we're enemies, we are saved by the Savior of the dead. So when we're enemies, he died for his enemies. This is the difference.

So I'm saying an important point. Independence cannot get beyond self-love. It can get a good way, but it cannot get the ultimate.

There's only one in the universe who is that ultimate, because there's only one person in the universe. And when we're spontaneously part of him, then as part of him we're that. So Adam and Eve, in this condition, couldn't resist that tree.

They couldn't choose right. They couldn't choose right, because they were stimulated, as we are meant to be stimulated, by self-love, by self-indulgence, and appetite, and ambition, and so on. And that's what we are.

And we follow our stimulations. But because they had an inner self of themselves, they could have said, Heavenly Father, you're mighty good to us. We might well want that tree.

But for goodness sake, Lord, unless you rescue us, we shall get it. Could you rescue us? That's what salvation is. You will never save except by the cry for rescue.

God have mercy upon me, I say. Of course, we shall call on Him alone, shall we say. No other way.

Because we can't risk ourselves. If Adam and Eve had had that heart cry, said, if I'm not rescued, I'll eat that tree. Sure, sure, it looks mighty nice.

I'm going for it. Quick, quick, quick. And of course, Adam followed Eve, like all good husbands do.

And so what she was done for, he was done for. Poor we poor men, we've been slaves all our lives. But the cry, there could have been the cry.

Where there's a cry, you're capable of seeing a supply. You can only see a supply when you've got a demand. Now that's why Adam and Eve never saw the tree of life.

Because there was no interest to them. They hadn't got the demand which required the supply. But if in that moment, they said, God, we're done for, and this tree looks mighty nice.

In some way, we're using pictorial imagery. Some way, God has said, there's a nicer tree. There's a nicer tree next door.

Take this one. Now we know what those two trees symbolize. We're told.

They symbolize persons. Why? Because we're told the tree of life gives eternal life. A tree doesn't give life.

A person is the life. That tree symbolizes Jesus Christ. Why do we know it symbolizes Jesus Christ? Because we still eat of the fruit of a tree to symbolize a person.

Every time we take the Holy Communion, you take of the fruit of a tree, to symbolize taking a person. So it's the greatest historic symbol through the ages that a tree is a symbol in this sense. It helps my act of faith.

By taking of the fruit of a tree, it's helping us to recognize we're taking the person in us. So what those two trees were, they meant two gods. And they meant that humanity is created to be God-possessed.

Which God? And the wrong God got them. And so the whole humanity is possessed in its foreign conditions by the wrong spirit. It's the spirit of self-centeredness.

That's what the Bible says. Paul, for instance, says this of us in our unredeemed condition. In time past, he says this in Ephesians 2, speaking of ourselves involved in the world before we were redeemed.

In time past, he says, when we walked according to the course of this world, in the unredeemed days, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that works in the children of disobedience. There he is. That's this spirit of self-centeredness.

Satan's quite easy to see. He hasn't got horns or tails. He isn't necessarily a murderer or adulterer.

He's just a respectable, egotistic businessman, that's all. That's all. Sorry.

And worse still, an egotistic professional missionary. Worse still. That's all.

So he's a very polite gentleman. If he was in England, he'd wear a top hat and tails. Very nice.

So you see, we've got these smeared ideas of this Satan. Oh no, he's just a spirit of self-centeredness. But I'm saying the Bible says he's a person.

And you'll see the importance. You may not see the importance of that now. I don't think we'll probably get there today.

We'll probably get there tomorrow. The reason for it. But what I'm saying is this.

The Bible makes that plain. Listen to that. I've said to you that.

Listen to this. Speaking of the unbelieving people. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians.

Of the unbelieving people in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds in them. So he says the God of this world. Why is Satan called a God? A God is an originator.

A God's an originator. He's only a created God. He's only God's agent.

We need to go further later on to explain it a little further still. Being part of God, he's God's agent. But he's called a God because he originates in a false dimension.

He produced a false kingdom out of a fire root which never should have been known. Listen to this again. John says this.

Very clear. John is the one that gets us down to the bottom always. He says this.

Speaking of the believers. Greater is he that is in you. Now we know that's the spirit of God.

Than he that is in the world. Read that. 1 John 4.4. Not it.

Greater is he that is in you, the spirit of God. Than he that is in the world, the spirit of Satan. And he actually gives them their names.

Two verses later on. 1 John 6.6. He says this. Hereby know we the spirit.

Remember the spirit's a person. The spirit, the God of truth. And the spirit, the God of error.

The God of truth, the God of error. Truth is the principle of self-giving. Error is the principle of self-loathing.

So here we've come out with a whole humanity spontaneously captured. Now there's, thank God, there's a significant difference. We're captives, not quite sons.

Strange thing about it makes that difference. Why? You see, if we were sons of the devil, in an adult sense, we should be out of reach. The devil, according to the Bible, is a person who is a total pervert.

The good for him has become the evil. And the evil for him has become a good. He's completely the other way around.

To him, anything which is self-interested, self-magnifying, self-seeking, self-gratifying is good. No matter what happens to you about it. Anything which is self-giving, self-sacrificing is ridiculous and evil.

He's a total pervert. Now we're not total perverts. Why? Because the sin of Satan was a sin from the center of the will.

The Bible reveals Satan in those two chapters, Isaiah 14 and Zechariah, as from the very center of his being, Out with you, God. I'm going to be my own God. Finished with you.

He sought to be his own God. It was a central purpose of the will. Adam and Eve were tricked.

Their wills were involved, but not in the total sense. Adam and Eve hoped God wasn't looking, that's all. Satan didn't care whether God was looking or not.

That's the difference. So man wasn't defiant like Satan was. That's why immediately, in the story of the four, God comes to them and talks to them.

Thank God he can still talk to us. That's why we don't call good evil unless we're perverted. We still know good to be good.

And as the crying man, we ought to love each other. We ought to be honest. We ought to be decent.

We ought to be pure. Thank God there's that. Thank God there's that.

Thank God every philosophy has the ideal. And every political party. They all think they'll get there by their own bootstraps.

I remember in England, about 25 years ago, I was staying with the Lord Mayor of Bristol, one of our citizens there. He'd run the early Labour Party men. Good man.

The founder of the Labour Party in England was the earliest Christian, Keir Hardie. In the old days. This was one of his men.

He told me, this is the New Testament party, he said, brother. We're going to live and have in parliamentary circles in England a New Testament party. It hasn't remained New Testament too well.

You can't do it. Self-loving self can't be New Testament sermon on the mount. Can't do it.

So every philosophy maintains that. But thank God it does. At least it does mean we know what we ought to be.

That's why God can get at us. God can't get at the devil. To him, he's fixed.

He laughs it out. To him, evil is good. Good is evil.

Not with us, thank God. We can get there, but that's not the average. So man is savable.

But he's naturally motivated, without even knowing it, by this spirit of self-certainty. That's why I did say also, it doesn't make quite now, that when we get into the redeemed life in a total sense, when we've understood, when we've faced with the becoming, and we've found what it is to be in the unity life, and walking it, you kind of forget God. You just aren't so conscious of it.

You're just living, and there's God there. That's the fun of life. Just the same as in the unredeemed condition, you live there and don't recognize the devil's motivating you at all.

You think it's your nice or nasty self, as the case may be. Of course, your neighbor's always got a devil if he's a bit nasty, but you never have. Take that for granted.

So there we are. Now, you've been very kind in giving me time. I've still got a little time.

I don't see too many nodding heads, so we'll continue for a little longer. Because I've got some business to pursue, three more sessions after this. Now we've got to turn and say, now we've got it.

We are a humanity who has stolen property. We are a humanity who has stolen property. All the magnificent percentage of humanity, all the amazing developments of humanity, are geared to self-centeredness instead of self-giving.

We can't be too thankful for every forward development of humanity. If it was geared only, you for me, I for you. If this was the basis.

But of course, it's geared the other way around. So our best way is, I'll give you a little, as long as I've got my plenty, which we took before. So you've got this distorted world.

And the whole humanity's caught up by it. Don't make any mistake. Often you meet people who say, well, so-and-so is awfully kind and nice.

I'm puzzled. So-and-so is not a Christian, perhaps an atheist. Awfully kind and nice.

I can't make it out. You can't judge by other people. See, there's no limit.

Will everybody love other people's kids as much as their own? Not many. And all the way through. You see, God's unconditional.

There are no favourites with God, no favourites with us when we're with God. It's different. I won't touch on it, but I'm presenting to you this fact.

If I'm apart from a union with God, I cannot be anything but self-centred. Because that's what it is. Humanity is a breakaway.

We've not really broken away. We're still part of God's being. There's only one being.

But the tremendousness of free will is all about being with God. You remember Paul said this. Get that clear.

Paul said the whole world is in the being of God. Not the redeemed. The unredeemed, too.

You read his great Athenian speech in Acts 17, where he was inspired by this strange Greek who didn't worship Zeus or Minerva or Athene or one of those. He worshipped an unknown God. Beautiful touch.

He found an altar to an unknown God. He meets this or that man after something. Socrates was one of those.

Socrates knew Athene too. I'm going to shake hands with him in heaven one of these days. If you don't accept him, I will.

But he's a great man. And Paul saw something. Oh, he says, that's not one of these ridiculous old idols.

This unknown. Come on, I'll tell you something. I'll tell you something.

He says, God's made of one blood. All nations were to dwell upon the earth. And he is not far from every one of us, he says, quoting rightly.

For in him we live and move and have our being, as also says one of your poets. He picked up a Greek poet, I think it was Sappho, and quoted him. Or her, in that case.

In Athene. So he put the whole humanity in the being of God. Our being is in God.

There's only one being. There's only one person. But do you see the tremendous sense of freedom? Do you see both the thrilling potential and the tremendous responsibility of freedom? As a free person, your potential is unlimited, but it's based on the responsibility of the choice which is final.

And in my free choice, I can say, out with you, God. I'm not in the least interested in being told I'm part of you. I'm myself and I run myself for myself.

And this being, I don't care. It's a ridiculous term, it's made of God. I'm not interested.

I'm a human being, I'm going to live for my humanity. That's how far we can go. So, you see, we are everywhere.

It's about being in God. For that reason, thank God, we have those intimations. You know, look back at our own life.

Back life has some little touches here and there. Little intimations coming up before we ever redeemed at all. I wish we were conscious of God.

Exactly, God's there. God's there. And a certain amount of His influences are upon us.

But in our freedom, while we remain bound to the chariot wheels of Satan, we're there, we're that, that's all. The basis of our being is self-centeredness. And we're basically those who ignore the fact that our being is God's.

We need redemption. And so we come up to our situation, yes? Thank you. It'll come in a little later.

It comes in for the very reason guilt means a consciousness of right, or you wouldn't be guilty. Thank God. Sin means a consciousness of right, or you wouldn't be sinful.

That's the difference between sin and just doing wrong. Sin means, of course, I shouldn't be a sinner. That means way down in my roots there's another thing I should be.

Thank God for that. And the guilt comes as we go along just because, thank God, I'm going to take it up a little later on. Thank God for our guilt because that makes us recognize we are wrong.

We've all got to get there. You'll never get right until you find you're wrong. No, no.

You'll never get up until you've fallen on your face. And I'll show you later on how you have to fall on your face twice in this life to get any health in your bones. Sorry for you.

Not only once. We'll get on that a little later on. Thank you.

Those are good things. Now, I'm seeking to put a gulf. Now, the danger of all philosophy is to mediate the way without a gulf.

You watch it. You take any philosophy and, indeed, I would have to say most religions. I've worked, of course, as a missionary in religions.

By that I mean you find a way by which somehow the self can grow up into its ultimate. You cannot. You cannot.

The self can't grow up into its ultimate. A self comes to a place and its ultimate is not what it should be. It comes to a place where there's a gap it can't bridge.

It can't become part of a self-giving God because it's a self-loving self. Unless that gulf is filled, it can't get there. There's a gulf.

Man cannot pass over your guilt, as you say. Recognition of separation. Recognition of lawlessness.

Not even wanting to be really. Basically wanting myself. And there's a gulf.

Don't fool ourselves. This is the gospel. This is Christianity.

This is why there's been the mysterious symbols all through history of the blood sacrifices. Somebody is sacrificing in our place. Don't fool with the Bible.

Don't fool with these basic truths. There's a thin red line right to the Bible. We don't like the word blood often.

The reason we don't, of course, is a word like that can become a kind of cliché by itself. I admit that. But the word means life.

The blood is the life. The blood means that person's poured his life out. As we heard, that was said yesterday about blood and water coming out.

It's right there. Because the gulf has to be breached. Now then, this is where we find God.

And this is where we ultimately find ourselves. God is love. What's love mean? Love is a remarkable word.

I remarked on it before. Love means you exist for need. Love exists for need.

If you are love, you exist for need. I think Louise mentioned the word for a moment in her talk this morning. I picked it up before now.

When she spoke about debtor, for a long time I was struck by that queer word. It comes particularly in a statement of the Apostle Paul going out to be a missionary in Romans 1. He says, I'm a debtor to the Jew and the Greek and the barbarian and the wise and the unwise. I kept on saying, why debtor? A debtor is a most unpleasant word.

A debtor is not an obligation. A debtor is owned by his predator. We spend our lives avoiding that one.

Trying to look the other way or something. Because a debtor is captured by his predator. Now, Paul could well say, it's my privilege to go.

Because I love God, I go to them. And perhaps a little touch of Protestantism. No.

He said, I've got to go. I'm owned by my predator. Why? Because need is a predator which owns love.

Wherever there's need, it has a claim on love. Love belongs to need. Marvelous word.

God belongs to need. That's why God had to save us. Sometimes you hear preachers say, oh, vague connoisseur.

No, no. No connoisseur. Poor old God had to do it.

Because love has to meet need. That's how you love your enemy. Why do you love your enemy? Because officially speaking, it isn't always so in human life.

Officially speaking in the Bible, an enemy is a person who's wrongfully wronged you. Now, of course, we're rather clever sometimes. We hurt other people.

Then they hurt us back. And we say they're our enemies. We're the ones who are wrong.

I don't mean that kind of enemy. I mean the person who has wrongfully insulted you, wrongfully wronged you. And as far as you know, it's in your fault.

The wrong is his side. And you know this. The one who's hurt isn't you.

It's he. The hurt has hurt. Because a person who deliberately does a wrong thing is murdering his own spirit.

He's the hurt one. You're already hurt insofar as you take it as hurt. Now, that's how you love your enemy.

How do you love your enemy? Because your enemy is in desperate need. And you look through what he's done to you and say, Oh, that's a symptom of a real need. Now then, because you're occupied with this need, love's occupied with need, you bypass the smack on your face.

You say, how somehow can God show you can reveal something of love by which he'll catch the secret of life, his love, not hitting people? That's the other cheek. The other cheek isn't the weakest thing on earth. It's the strongest thing on earth.

Why? Because the other cheek means most of us, if we're struck on one cheek, we think it's strong to strike back. Well, we Christians would like to do that but don't, so we usually say, please God, do it for us. That's the other way around.

If we can't get God to take vengeance for us, what is this? And I say, what's the other cheek? It means this. Although I'm hit and hurt, and I'm meant to be hurt. I'm a human.

I'm meant to be hurt. And I am hurt. I say, no, this isn't the real point.

I'm a expression of the eternal love. Now, that person's hurt who's hurting me. God, show me some way, though I am hurt, how some way I could, don't matter about this, meet him.

In doing so, how do I get that? Well, that's not the point. That's the other cheek. That's a victory.

That's mighty power. That's the power of the love of God coming through. Like weakness isn't weakness.

Weakness is not going your way but going God's way. Going God's way is something that can include firmness, too. Those are the other way around.

Now, so I was saying, do we see the point? Often, preachers of the Bible need to see this. They give the idea of an angry, judging God. Oh, no, no, no.

God isn't up there angry and hurt and with a big stick because we insult him and break his laws and hate him and everything else. No, no. He's hurt with our hurt.

Because he's love, he says, Oh, those poor fools, they've got a hell inside them. How can they get the hell out of them? Well, remember that to me. He's not feeling his hurt.

He's thinking of our hell. That's love. See the point? Someone a day or two ago very nicely said to me, What about jealousy? Why is God jealous? God isn't jealous of his own self.

God hasn't got a self protecting himself. God's only love. God's jealous.

Why? Because he's jealous that you shouldn't be caught up with the wrong one. He's jealous you shouldn't be caught up with and live your life with lust for the world or something which is damning you. He's jealous for you.

He wants you. He's jealous for you being sold out to the wrong thing. Not jealous for himself.

He's jealous to rescue you. This is the beauty of God. And this is Jesus.

So you see, love, he had to come. Poor God, he had to come. We're in a mess.

And love belongs to messes. So he had to come. Well, my time's up.

Mess and no mess. So we have to go on. Lord bless you.