(Note: This tape was transcribed by Kristian Klippenstein. The editors gratefully acknowledge his invaluable assistance.)
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Part 1
Jones: Last week a child was brought to us – two children – that had been ravaged, raped by members of their own so-called family.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: We take them in, without money or price. That’s never a condition. An older woman coming up from Los Angeles, got older people coming in all the time, four senior citizen homes that we’re purchasing, a convalescent home that we’re purchasing, a community centre where we baptize– and we’ll be baptizing again Wednesday night, so many last night after the marvelous healings, made a decision to be born again and converted to this apostolic equalitarian message. And so they’ll be baptized Wednesday night. Uh, the ones that are leaving are the ones that need me. (Pause) So think about that back there. It’s indeed wonderful to be in the presence of God. And always Jesus is present where his body and believers are together.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: So if you would like to participate in the greatest prosperity that you could ever know, follow the suggestions that the Holy Spirit gave us a few days ago, and you’ll see a sign put up no doubt, that says name and address – it’s up here on this to my left – and you’re to put your phone number and area phone call, because there’s a prophecy coming. It’s already been given to the congregation, the day, the hour – to members of it – the day, the hour, the year, and the minute of a great cataclysm, a great apocalypse that will reach the entirety of this continent, and especially horrible, horrible things will occur to California. And– except Redwood Valley. And if you wish to receive a prophecy about this, two weeks prior to its happening, you must fill out in this exact fashion. The Holy Spirit spoke it a few days ago, and this is the way. If you don’t like it, then your rebellion, you might as well keep your money. We used to not even take offerings. And here you find a minister that owns no car, owns no furniture, owns no house, never bought a new pair of shoes, never bought a pair of shoes in my adult life – never. I’ve worn hand-me-downs in clothes, and I’ve adopted legally eight children of all races. If you don’t want to help with such a thing as that willingly, keep it.
Voices in congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: Because you’re already responsible. You’re in the presence of truth today. And when truth comes your way and you don’t respond to it, you’ll be held guilt– in guilt for the rest of your days, and in condemnation. So I have no need to take further concern about whether those who are not in the mind of Christ wish to behave. I know that some of you here love God, and you will give as you have been prospered. Now if you don’t give as you’re prospered, don’t– don’t bother to give at all. Don’t just shove a little offering in there and think it’s finished. You must weigh this out, as the revelation came these few days ago, and now this is the procedure. We used to didn’t even pass plates. It was years we fed the hungry, we have equal Christmases. All children in our Temple get the same Christmas, whether they come from a more advantaged home or a poor home. Every person gets the same birthday in our homes. Last Wednesday night, we had the June birthdays. The preacher here doesn’t get a birthday. It’s a good reverse, it’s time that the people got some recognition. No anniversaries in our church. No birthday, anniversaries, no pastor’s appreciation. We have only Christ appreciation, (voice slowly rising) and Christ doesn’t need money to be appreciated. He doesn’t need Cadillacs to be appreciated, and you don’t give the Cadillacs to the preachers just becau– when you appreciate God. You help those that are hungry. You help those that are naked. You clothe those that are in need, you take those in that are strangers. You feed the hungry. You minister to those that are sick and afflicted. Pure religion undefiled before God is to minister to the orphans and widows in their affliction. So if you want to appreciate God, you can’t do it by giving a preacher a nice car. Or a preacher’s wife, a pastor’s wife tea. They don’t need to be honored. No flesh shall glory in his presence. We want to glorify God by taking care of his little ones.
Voices in congregation: That’s right!
Jones: Said, Suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven.
Voices in congregation: (Calls of agreement)
Jones: (Voice moderates) So open your heart now, and give freely. Give freely, child, because not a penny of it’s going help any human being in a staff or the ministry of this church. (Pauses)
(Tape edit)
Jones: (Starts in mid-sentence) –none of them are stealing, none of them are creating violence or lawlessness. None of them use alcohol, none of them use tobacco, so we’re gonna take time with our children.
Congregation: (Calls)
Jones: We’re gonna take time with them.
Congregation: (Calls)
Jones: Bless them. Bless them. So sweet. You’re our very sweet little ones. They never sung with the big choir, and you sang just like big people there – better. Sometimes better– you sang with enthusiasm. Just keep your eyes on the choir director in the future. Watch him. Watch him, that he’ll give you a guideline. Thank you. Thank you, sweets.
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
(Organ plays softly)
Jones: Thank you, sweets. You may be seated. (Pause) I wish to say that I am grateful indeed for all of you who have come out, for you that are black who have emancipated yourself from the old store-bought religion, that has been purchased and sold to you to keep you in misery and oppression. I’m glad for those of you that have been enlightened to recognize that we need to have our own faith, our own vital movement for peace and brotherhood, that we need to get ourselves together. I’m grateful for some of you that have come to the light of truth. And I’m grateful for those that are white who will venture out in a day when – evidently – Christianity doesn’t have enough religion to pour water out of a boot.
Congregation: (Calls)
Jones: Because you that are white here are the only ones that love God. They would come any place in this Bay Area to see someone that healed those cripped– decrepit and crippled bones, such as that woman last night, and those that left the crutches, that man back there in the right aisle, and the woman that was on her crutches, and the other that was on her cane – so many I could not remember – and the one that came out the wheelchair, they would be so glad to come anywhere in this Bay Area to see such a man doing the works of God. They would come anywhere at any time to behold, as we did last weekend, four raised from the dead, right before our eyes. One in the pool, went down in the water. Went down – an older person – down under the water, and there was no breath. No breath drawn, there wasn’t a bubble. But I just touched him, and he came back to life with a smile.
Congregation: (Cheering, applause)
Jones: (voice rises) These miracles of the ever-presence of God. This that I am doing is being circulated high and low. They’re telling it on the mountains. They’re telling it in the valleys.
Voices in congregation: (Agrees)
Jones: There’s not a place around this area that does not know of this one that has come in the name of Jesus, healing the cancers, causing the blind to see, raising the dead, and establishing an apostolic order of freedom and justice where all live together, holding all things in common and sharing in the true spirit of apostolic socialism. (Calls out) They know. But sisters and brothers that are white, they will not come, because their God is not big enough to cover color. He is not big enough to override their bigotry. The Spirit of God within them that they say is God is not noble or loving enough to take in all people. So when they say I am tearing down the churches, it soo– seems certainly to appear that I need to tear down the churches.
Congregation: (Calls)
Jones: For the churches have divided the people.
Congregation: (Calls)
Jones: They have created racial barriers. They have placed white against black, and black against white, poor against the rich. So it is very important, then, that we tear down the lies and the deception and all the institutions that do not propagate virtue and holiness. (Voice moderates) There only a handful of you that are white in this room. It’s a sad commentary on the so-called – and I emphasize the so-called – church of God. For there’s not one saved that has prejudice in his bones. I mean prejudice of any kind.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: The fact that you don’t clap shows you’re guilty.
Congregation: (Delayed applause)
Jones: (Voice rises) It’s true anyhow. You’re afraid to become like little children. There’s a reservation mentally, or emotionally. There’s some– some port in your portion of spirit, you do not want to be submissive to truth. Or you would clap and give acclaim to what you believe.
Congregation: (Light applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates) So I shall presume that everyone that believes in equality clap their hands.
Congregation: (Applause and cheering)
Jones: I shall say it one more time. Then I will ask you to leave this assembly, because I need the obedience of childlike faith to raise the dead, to heal the blind, and to cure cancers. If you are so arrogant and stubborn that you will not clap your hands that you believe in the equality of all races, I ask you to leave. One more time, I ask you to clap your hands if you believe in brotherhood.
Congregation: (Applause and cheering)
Jones: (Speaking loudly) Get out, brother. Get out or clap your hands. Get out up there, sister, or clap your hands. I said – up there – ushers, I want them to clap their hands or leave.
Congregation: (Applause continues)
Jones: (Voice moderates) That shows– that shows, you see– that shows, you see, the hypocrisy of your own mind. When someone talks to you and you will clap your hands, and then when they don’t, you won’t. Your conviction’s not very deep. Come over where our is– ours is, and you’ll find it’s very deep indeed.
Congregation: (Delayed applause)
Jones: I find it my custom – and I’ve healed the sick in a Buddhist temple – I find it my custom when I go into a Buddhist temple, to do exactly what they’re doing. When I go into a Catholic church, I kneel when they kneel. I reverence their house. When I go into a Japanese home – as I have when I’ve gone into the far West – the far East, Far West from our standpoint – when I go into a Japanese home I take my shoes off, for that is their custom.
Congregation: (Agreement and applause)
Jones: You are now in the house of Jones.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: And that house of Jones is synonymous, as I see it–
Male voice in congregation: With the house of God.
Jones: With the house of God. But I did not say that. I said to you first, this that you could agree with, it’s a house of Jones, and if you don’t believe it, try as the man was last night, with his knife on him, to try to stand very noxiously and say he wanted a word. Very sweetly. But I knew his spirit, and I said, you shall not have a word here. And then he showed himself to be quite other than the spirit of God. As he railed, in his vulgar railing, he showed that I knew before he opened his mouth what spirit he is. As you know, when people stand it’s my custom always to let them speak, but I did not let him speak. And as you saw the people move when he started to show his ugliness, you would at least be able to admit this morning that if you don’t know it’s the house of God, you surely know it’s the house of Jones.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: I considered it an insult to any people to go into a church, or an organization, and show ugliness.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: They think they’re hip and they haven’t got enough hip to get out of the rain.
Congregation: (Quiet agreement)
Jones: You call yourself a hippie, then you oughta be hip with the truth. (Speaking over congregation agreement) When you– when you can’t sit and endure the truth, you are not hip.
Congregation: (light applause and agreement)
Jones: You’re crip, not hip.
Congregation: (Stirs, light applause)
Jones: I’ve got so many of these folks, that they throw their hair up in a twist, and put on a certain gay kind of color like a– they feel that that is in comp– in company with the movement of youth, and they call themselves hip. Some of the greatest bigots that ever walked out of here have looked like hippies.
Voices in congregation: Yeah.
Jones: Some of the nicest people I know, who’d give the shirt off their back, dress very straight. And some of the loveliest people I know also adorn themselves with the so-called dress of the hippie movement. But I’ve found too many who think they’re hip, and they walk out when a little bit of truth comes their way. (Pause) But, uh, I would say, you know, I used to like beards, and I still can appreciate them because I judge individually. But for all the people who come here with their beards, and showed themselves, they’da been better if they’da put a beard on the other side, it mighta done them more good.
Congregation: (Light laughter and applause)
Jones: I mean that we – you know what I’m talking about – we’ve had so many that came in wanting to show freedom. They wanted to exercise their freedom, but they hurt others. (Pause) Now this is a fact I’m telling you. We’ve had more people in here – something you can think about, you– those that are still left here who believe that they’re– you’re in the hip or the youth movement or in the freedom movement and the Jesus whatever-you-call-it. They say freaks. I don’t like that word but that’s what you name yourself. So if you want to do honor to that movement, quit showin’ your posterior as you have in every meeting thus far. Everyone that has come in here and disrupted our meetings have been of that movement. They’ve shown a very ugly spirit. And if that’s God, I fail to appreciate it. I fail to appreciate what that man tried to do last night, to stand up and take up over a meeting, and to do it so sneaky. To be very sweet, hold up a finger – peace – then to be so sneaky. If I had let him talk, he would’ve let me be the endorser of his vomit. But I said, for the moment, you are not speaking, you’re not interrupting this service. And then you saw all hell break loose in him.
Congregation: (Murmurs)
Jones: His words were condemnation. False Christ. He spewed out his venom upon us, and reached in for his little weapon. You know they– they talk about not having any weapon but Christ, but when they get in a corner they always find another weapon.
Congregation: (Light laughter)
Jones: I’ve had so many freaks come in here on that nature, that the sheriff said, I think some of your guards should be posted. He said, maybe you can raise yourself from the dead, but he said, while you’re busy raising yourself, it might be that some other one that would be in difficulty and they need to take care of themselves. So I think it should be posted now, that there are security people that have been given licensing by the Mendocino County Sheriff that are carrying weapons open and obvious. Because this week, I had to stop a bullet that would have killed someone else.
Congregation: (Calls)
Jones: They got right in our presence and shot– till the blast– till the fire was so close we could see the report right from the barrel of it. The person got that close to us. And if had not been for that which I am in the hundred-fold degree of consciousness, somebody would’ve been dead or perhaps more than one somebody. ‘Cause it would’ve gone into a whole crowd of people. (Pause) You see, people who’re around me know that there’s a powerhouse here.
Congregation: (Calls, then applause)
Jones: Some time ago– some time ago the people saw a weapon being discharged. It went right into my chest. Three holes. The nursing personnel put their fingers in it, big as an index finger. But I did not even bother to rest. I got on my feet instantly, and healed the sick, stopped an epileptic seizure on a word of command, and counselled all night long. So I’m not personally concerned, but I thought the sheriff had a point. I might be distracted healing someone else, or keeping the head of this company together, and thus some others are walking around here, that if you think you’re gonna do dirty work– If you live by the sword, you’re liable to find yourself dying by the sword.
Voices in congregation: (Calls and applause)
Jones: (Chuckles) So every time you look at a camera, look twice. (pause) The reason I’m telling that, we got a devil in here thinks he’s gonna do something today.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: And it’s about– there’s about eighteen guns fixed on you, brother, ‘cause I’ve already sent the message.
Congregation: (Prolonged cheering and applause)
Jones: Who do you think I– is afraid of the big bad wolf?
Congregation: (Calls) (Pause)
Jones: (Speaks off mic, unintelligible) Okay, now, I just told you. Now everybody knows. And so if you want to– don’t you be afraid. That– that person, if he could lose that gun, he’d– he’d– he’d find a place in his bottom-side to put it, but he can’t right now and he don’t know what to do with it.
Congregation: (cheering and applause)
Jones: That’s the first time– I’m speaking metaphysically, I’m not trying to be ru– crude, I just had that thought, that uh, E.R., he’s trying to, (stumbles over words) he said, he thought, if it wasn’t so big I would put it there, but it’s too big.
Congregation: (Laughter)
Jones: It’s high time you knew. You may have to do it yet, because people gonna be watching closely at that door, so you better be struggling back there to see if you can get it done.
Congregation: (Calls and laughter)
Jones: Don’t you worry. You say, it’s not safe to be around here. Nobody died here.
Congregation: (Murmurs agreement)
Jones: (Voice rises throughout) Nobody’s died. This year, twenty-four people have been brought in that were in from the hospital like the one last week. I called her out while I was raising the dead in this assembly, called her out of the hospital, out of the general hospital, she came walkin’ in, in her eighties, been healed. She felt my spirit come to her, and she walked out from her intensive ward, and walked up and down our aisles, saying, Jim Jones came and healed me. And I was here, but I was over there at the same time.
Congregation: (Agreement and applause)
Jones: (Calls out) So you don’t need to be afraid around here. This is the most safe-guarded place you could know, because the weapons of my warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty to the pulling-down of strongholds. (Pause) (Voice moderates) Some have seen me, and then they have not seen me. I was with them once in a gathering of meditations and prayer, and concentration of thought, in a closed room – the whole staff – and then I was not there. I was there, and yet then I found myself hundreds of miles away taking care of a blessed one that had been close. So I can be here, there, and everywhere, for I’m representing God. I have crucified my flesh, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I – Jim Jones – but Christ that lives in this body.
Congregation: (Calls and applause)
Jones: So I have made my body a part of the universal mind substance. And if you know anything about universal mind substance, you can aim out of here, and it might be a hundred yards to the right or the left, and you better just watch out what you’re doing. In fact of the matter, I’m going tell you, E.R., if you shoot that gun any time – and you won’t do it today – you better get rid of that gun, because I am going to make it come out the backside and go through your belly.
Congregation: (Prolonged cheering and applause)
Jones: You– you paid assassin. You that would go about doing the devil’s due. You that would go out for those rascal preachers, and try to kill God’s prophets. For it is written that they tha– in the last days will kill, even kill you, thinking they do God a service.
Congregation: (Calls of agreement)
Jones: If you go out of here afraid, you’re gonna get sick before you go home, sister.
Congregation: (Calls of agreement)
Jones: I just think about it. Because I said, I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. And we are complete in him.
Congregation: (Calls and cheers)
Jones: (Voice rises) My movements are no longer the movements of Jim Jones, but the movements of the Almighty, the Infinity of Infinitude!
Congregation: (Cheering and applause)
Jones: I am the pendulum of equilibrium! I am the spirit of justice! I have come in the person of Christ, just as Paul, the apostle said. What you forgive, I forgive also, he said. Anything you bind, I bind also. And Paul said, I do it not in the name, but in the person of Jesus Christ.
Congregation: (Calls)
Jones: I’m here in the fathership degree. I’m not here in the thirty-fold. I’m not here in the sixty percent. But I’m here in the hundred-fold, (in full throat) one hundred percent God Almighty!
Congregation: (Cheering and applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates slightly) I have inculcated the spirit and mind of God. I have let this mind be in me which you were told to do. I have let this mind be in me which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, in the form of a servant, considered it not robbery to be equal with God. Though he was a slave, he said he was made perfect through the things that he suffered. He learned obedience through the death and mortification of the cross. And he said, in Philippians 2, for all of you to let this mind be in you. Well, I have. (Voice rises to full throat) So if the mind is in me, then the body belongs to the body, the body belongs to the mind! So the mind is Christ, and the body is Christ, and God is addressing you at this point!
Congregation: (Cheering and applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates slightly) God Almighty (unintelligible word) is addressing you in the Godship degree. (Voice rises to ministerial fervor) That’s the spiritual truth. He says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. In my heart, I don’t think. In my heart, I know I am the tabernacle of God Almighty!
Congregation: (Cheering and applause)
Jones: It is written, he is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you are able to ask or think. Jesus said, for what good work do you stone me? It is written, ye are gods. In my heart, I know that I am that same spirit. (Speaking softer, but quickly) Because, he said, he is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you are able to ask or think. Have you ever been able to ask that you would be as God? To walk as God, to talk as God? (Voice rising to ministerial fervor) The spirit of truth says he’s able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you’re able to ask, or even to think. (Voice moderates, then rises to ministerial fervor) I decided to think big. I’m going to see the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ. I’m going to see hell give up its dead. I’m going to see the grave give up those that are in bondage. (Speaking over congregation clapping and cheering) I’m going to see all this world blossom as a rose! I’m going to see capitalism fall to the great apostolic socialism!
Congregation: (Cheering and applause)
Jones: For as I think in my heart, so am I. (Voice moderates) And last night, the woman who was crippled and her limbs so grotesquely– grotesquely crippled like a pretzel before your eyes. I discerned in her heart that she saw God in me. She said, you’re God. And I said, that visualization will heal you. And it caused her to dance around this room like a new– new child.
Congregation: (Scattered cheering and applause)
Jones: It’s beautiful. That’s the mystery of God. (Voice rising) God is a principle. God is love, and love is a principle.
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: God didn’t say he was a personality, but he is a principle. God is love, and love is the apostolic sharing on the New Testament day of Pentecost. And if you follow that principle, you can have as much of it as you wish to perceive. And the more of God you see in me, the more of God I shall reproduce in you.
Congregation: (Cheering and applause)
Jones: (Speaking in ministerial fervor) The more of love and socialism you see in me, the more I shall reproduce in you. (Voice moderates) Visualization is the source of harmonization. And harmonization is the source of supply. (Pause) If you’ll take cognizance of my teachings– and I’m not even begun to teach. Come up to Redwood Valley in our righteous government meeting on Tuesday night – become a member so you can do that, it’s membership meeting night – and hear the deeper truths that you’ve not heard in these assemblies. Or come Wednesday night, for the greatest miracles happen when you hear the teachings. When you know the truth, the truth will set you free.
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: There’re none living in lax wants and limitations who know the truth. But you say, I come one meeting only and want to get healed. You can’t get healed in one meeting only. And if you do, you better come back and get the truth, because you won’t stay healed.
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: (Voice rising) You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: (Statements punctuated by congregation responses) When you get my truth, those that have, have not died. As I said, you think about a congregation that’s never seen a casket in it. That’s something to consider. It’s truly wonderful. That’s never seen a casket rolled before its altar. I have not held a funeral in so long I cannot remember. It’s truly wonderful!
Congregation: (Scattered calls and applause)
Jones: You that have come from your various churches today, your churches average a funeral a week. Several funerals a month. I don’t average a funeral in five years. (Pause) (Full throat) In ten years, I have conducted three funerals outside of the will and the mind of God. In ten years, I have been called on to conduct three funerals, of which were not participants of my spirit. But I have conducted the funeral of no one who knew the mind of Christ that is in me. No member in the nucleus of this family have ever died, because the spirit of resurrection is in this house! The spirit of life is in this house!
Congregation: (Cheering and applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates slightly, then rises) The spirit of equalitarian socialism. God’s mathematical principle of. God’s mathematical and geometrical principle of. It’s compoundable! It’s reincarnatable! (Voice moderates, then rises) I long ago saw that the sky was everywhere and nowhere. That the heaven in the sky was a nothingness of all nothing. (Voice moderates slightly, then rises) And you could look in the sky for the millions of light years, and you’ll find not one galaxy that has life on it. You can travel at the speed of a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles a second and sweep through space for the next three million light years, and you will not find heaven, because heaven is within you.
Congregation: (Cheering and agreement)
Jones: The kingdom of heaven is here! Said, God is not afar off, but he’s at hand. (Full throat) Thy kingdom come, I said, in the sonship degree. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven! And I am having my way, saith God. I am healing the people! I’m bringing them together out of their racism! I’m curing them of their blindness, taking their cancers from their bodies, causing the crippled to walk, causing them– the lame to leap like a hart, causing them to dance for joy . I’m feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, taking in the stranger! God has come in his fathership degree to heal the world of its wounds.
Congregation: (Cheering and Applause)
Jones: (Intense) If you’re not clappin’, it’s because you’re not living in the actual conscious presence of God.
(Tape quickly fades out, silence for thirty seconds)
Part 2
(Tape fades in, organ music playing)
Jones: (Begins in mid-sentence, speaking over organ) That song’s sung again, ‘less it’s played by him. What a beautiful sound to have come out, as the sister who has been– cancer– her spread all of her body, in the last day– throes of her treatment haven’t bring that growth out. It’s so wonderful, praise God. Praise God. (Organ music swells, then ends) I’m– It’s wonderful. (Pause) God almighty. God almighty. That– I’ve never heard playing like that in my mortal days. (Organ music begins again, with scattered applause) Never, never. I never heard anybody play a horn like that. Not in the church – never.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: (Organist begins playing “He Knows How Much We Can Bear”) We are our heavenly father’s children, and we all know that he loves us, one and all. Please bring that horn every time you come to Redwood Valley. That– that lifts your soul, makes you feel good. Frees the body. It’s a sermon, all in itself. Just made me feel a hundred percent better, then to have our sister come walkin’ in. (Calls out) Hey God!
(Crescendo in music)
Jones: Doctors give up (unintelligible word) cancer, then just have her walk in, bring it out. (Calls out) Hey, it’s wonderful! (Sings) We are our heavenly father’s children/ And we all know he loves us one and all/ Yet there are times that we find we answer/ Another voice and call.
(Tape edit)
Jones: (Begins in mid-sentence, speaking slowly, with organ music in background) (unintelligible word) –meeting, if you have a vehicle, if you own a vehicle somewhere, where there is a white sweater and a white plastic coat in that car somewhere. I do urge you to get one of these cloths. I urge you to get one of the cloths. (Pauses) Thank you. (Unintelligible sentence)
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: Sweet? Just saved you from a very, very tragic accident. Thank God, thank God.
Congregation: (Applause) (Organ music swells)
Jones: Just move as quietly as you can, little ones. ‘Cause people here need their help, need their help, need their strength. (Lengthy pause) Making notes, I’m making some notations, things that I have to take care of. I don’t call out everything, so please just keep your minds and attention, love and devotion placed upon Christ. (Pauses) Remember, dears, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Keep that in mind, as I told you about earlier in my sermon, on my little sermonizing. Yes, for a moment I had my thoughts on a sweater, and it was really good that that sweater was spoiled, because we don’t need any place but God to have our treasure. (Hums along with organ music)
(Tape edit, several seconds of silence)
Jones: (Speaks slowly, with organ music in background) Others have asked me, what– how do you manifest this gift, Jim, I’d like to know how you do it. I can’t give you any direct message of how I do it, but I can tell you that there were certain procedures that I’ve followed through the years that have brought it about. Self-denial. Said, if any man would come after me, let him first take up his cross, Jesus said, deny himself and take up his cross. I am as confident, as I sit here, if I owned fancy cars and homes, and dressed in the wasteful manner of many people – even ministers – all sorts of flowerly designs and beautiful, beautiful styles, Madison Avenue suits, and Brooks Brothers suits, and alligator shoes and so forth and so on. I’m positive that I wouldn’t have this blessing, if I hadn’t adopted– if I had not adopted eight children through the years. Legally. I would’ve not had this gift. Say, what’s that got to do with it? He said, suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of heaven. If daily I didn’t go from my senior citizen homes there on the church property – one to another – and see the older ones, and take care of them, I mean really nurse them, not only meditate for them but nurse them. Nothing, nothing that I won’t do. If they have an impaction in their bowels, I take my hands and break it up, break up that impaction, give them an enema, clean it out. Because I know a lot about natural therapies and how to be tender to an older person. Sometimes when they come in to you at first particularly, they– they’ll have this awful impacted uh, bowel. It’d be just like, uh, big as your fist. And there’s only one way you can break it up, only one way you can break it up, and that’s with your fingers. And I don’t think if I had– didn’t have that kind of tender loving care that reached out to people when they had that kind of a need – I’m positive if I hadn’t had that kind of love that’s broke up thousand impactions, I’ve gone at least a thousand times with my fingers into their anal area to break up the terrible misery of the– of the– of the toxic that’s caused there by the impaction. Give them the enemas, or bathe their feet. I wouldn’t have this gift. All of it correlates, you see. All of it correlates. You can’t separate me from it, and that’s how– that’s how it started. Someone asked me back there, said I– I want– I’m coming in to what you have. And I hope you are, because certainly it’s needed. But the person that approached me, I had some question about it, whether you were quite ready. I accept all races as one, there’s no respect of persons in God. I don’t acknowledge any color, or national difference. All are one in him. And I said, I love every little thing. Every animal, every plant. There’s not a plant I don’t nurture around my place. Not a broken limb that I’m not concerned about. I think it’s feeling. It’s bearing you– one another’s burdens. Caring, so much that you will take the infirmities upon you. And if you are willing to do that, I think that you can– maybe not just have as precise a gift as I have in the hundred-fold manifestation, ‘cause there’s thirty-fold, sixty-fold, one hundred-fold realms in God. But I am sure if you care, you’ll be a source of healing wherever you go, if you feel for people, if you want to bear their burdens. You may not call them out like I do, and heal them in the exact manner that I do, or raise the dead perhaps, because there are unique apostolic ministries. Not everyone can be in the hundred-fold company immediately. We all come at varying times into our consciousness of Christ, but as in Adam, all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man after his own order. So don’t try to get to the place where I am metaphysically or parapsychologically, or the paranormal faculty, the supernatural faculties. I have all nine gifts, and I have each of the five-fold ministries manifested through me. I’m an apostle, I’m yet a pastor. I’m a teacher, I’m an evangelist, and I certainly am a prophet.
Congregation: (Murmurs)
Jones: (Speaking over congregation agreement) So all of those ministries are in one. And– That doesn’t make me one bit better than you. It’s my responsibility to use those gifts that I have. Those aptitudes and callings are for the edification of the body of Christ, and it’s my duty to express my talents and gifts just as you are in responsibility to express your gifts and talents. No one honours me in the flesh by even giving me a birthday gift or a Christmas gift. I will not permit it. For I believe that no flesh shall glory in the presence of God. So that is the reason that we in our Temple have equal birthdays. Each month, we celebrate everyone’s birthday and give them the same gift. Each Christmas, every child gets the same amount of Christmas. Out of the hundreds and thousands in our Temple, they all get the same Christmas. And every week, I personally– rare exceptions, this week I was busy involved in baptizing, we baptized several, nearly fifteen hundred people in the last few weeks, by immersion just in the– in the– since May. But this time I did not get to give out, but usually on Wednesday night or– I will pass out the allowances to every child, and every child in our church gets the same allowance. That’s why there’s no thievery amongst the children. That’s why they don’t steal from one another. They don’t have to. They all have same benefits. One child doesn’t feel threatened by another. And one day we hope to see it that every child will have exactly the same amount of money to be spent for clothes. Doesn’t have to dress just like the other fella, but to have the same amount. When a child is secure, when he has what he needs, he will not steal. Our children don’t steal off of us. There’re many churches you can’t go to without someone stealing from you. Stealing your purse, taking things from you. But our little fellows know that they’re loved, or they’re learning, the ones that are in the family know that– that their pastor, that Uncle Jim will be there every week to give them the same allowance that any other child, whether it’s the son of the district attorney or the deputy district attorney – we have two district attorneys in our church – or be a medical person, or it could be someone who’s working in the fields. Every child gets the same allowance. Now, I’m answering this question ‘cause you posed it. Walking down the aisles, I had several ask me the question. I’ve never bothered to discuss this before. But you wanted to know something of what makes me tick, and this is what makes me tick. This feeling of concern for all living things, the feeling that God is not a respecter of persons, and the respect of persons is sin. The feeling that each one of my members of my uh, senior citizen home must have the same amount of food and vitamins, and bedding, and facilities, and medical care, and spiritual care as the next one. The absolute necessity imposed upon me that no child shall be without what he needs. That no member should be without what he needs. That no animal shall go – in all of our vast territory – hungry. That’s what makes the hundred-fold come forth in you. Now some of you, who have been apostolic for years, you understand that there’s thirty-fold, sixty-fold, and a hundred-fold. Most churches content themselves only being thirty percent filled with God. That’s not enough God to get you through these times.
Congregation: (Brief laughter)
Jones: Some are satisfied with sixty-fold – the Pentecostal experience, a little deeper. But that’s still only sixty percent God. And then some are pressing on to the prize and the mark of the high calling, which is in Christ Jesus: one hundred percent God. Tha–
(Tape edit)
Jones: (Begins in mid-sentence) –Gods. That’s what Jesus came to make you realize. And that we are to be, we who are predestined and preordained and who are in his foreknowledge are also preordained to become conformable to the image and likeness of the Son of God. We are to be like Christ in every way. We are to be perfect, even as he and the heavenly father is perfect. The purpose is to be just exactly like God. To be miniature replicas of God Almighty in the earth. That’s what I have come to show you, that you can be God and that all men can be God, if they will yield themselves to the movement of the spirit of truth and will pour out mortality, selfishness, and the urge to, uh, gain, accumulate, capitalistic, aggrandizing spirits, if they will eliminate it, God can come in and take over the body.
Congregation: (Murmurs agreement)
Jones: Now it’s here today, it can be gone tomorrow. Just because you have the spirit here today doesn’t mean it won’t be gone tomorrow. You’ve got to work at it twenty-four hours a day. (pause) Well, I answered that question, I presume, as best it could be answered. We don’t see enough of each other, you know, darlings, and I feel like we ought to communicate a little bit back and forth, so you understand what I believe, what I feel, what I think. I don’t want you to be, uh, harmonizing with me if you don’t, uh, understand what I’m saying. There’s got to be a manifestation of the sons of God. If they’re not a manifestation of the sons of God we’re finished. If we don’t become living epistles, read and known of all men, we are finished. (Pause) What do we have to look to but the anointing? The Bible tells you that no man can call Jesus Christ except by the Holy Ghost, or the anointing. Christ, the Holy Ghost, the anointing, revolution, whatever word you want to speak of– That, that spirit, that’s the only way you can know what– what it– what exists. You can’t know anything without the Holy Ghost. The Bible is not clear. The letter killeth, Second Corinthians 3:16 [2 Corinthians 3:6], says the letter kills. The Bible kills, in other words. Letter to Romans, letter to Corinthians. The Bible kills, but the Spirit. What is the Spirit of God? Love. Love maketh alive. (Pause) See, the Bible was written by King James of England, not James the brother of Jesus. It’d be wonderful if it was James the brother of Jesus, but it was written by King James of England. Who was King James? A despot. He persecuted the American colonies. He killed the blacks by putting them in the Good Ship Jesus. Sent them here in slavery. Threw mothers out with – that were pregnant – outside into the waters for the sharks to eat. I’m talking about the King James of England. I’m going to say very much about this. He persecuted the early Indians. King James can’t show you the way to God. He– he’s translated this marvellous truth that’s there, but he’s also emasculated it somewhat, because anyone knows if your heart is right, if you look at the Bible, just at for instance Matthew 1:16 and Luke 3:23, and trace the genealogy of Jesus. Now if you’re very honest, you can’t help but admit what I’m saying’s true. If you trace the birth of Jesus, through Joseph, in Matthew the first chapter and the sixteenth verse, and Luke the third chapter and the twenty-third verse, what do you find? One place Jesus’ father’s Joseph, and the other place it is also Joseph. But what about the grandfather? One place says his grandfather was Mathan. The other one says his grandfather was what? Matthat. M-a-t-t-h-a-t, as opposed to M-a-t-t-h-a-n. But it gets even worse as you go on. You trace him on back to Abraham, and in one place he’s got fifteen more grandparents than he does in the other. (Pause) You know it’s true. (Voice rising) If you never stopped to think about those things– Say, well, it doesn’t bother me. Well, it’s bothering your children. That’s how the colleges are defeating the faith that was once delivered to the saints. They show the exposures of the dead letter. Errors of the dead letter. That’s why you have to have the Holy Ghost to show you what’s true, and what’s error. That’s why I said, how can you hear without a preacher, how can he preach lest he be sent. Faith doesn’t come by reading, but faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. What is the word of God? Just gettin’ up and preachin’ about heaven? That’s not the word of God. The word of God’s what I did a while ago with the woman– there’s been three cancers here (stumbles over words) that’ve been told the intents and thoughts of their minds, and there’re three cancers passed here today.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: What did it say, Hebrews 4:12 said the Word of God was? Said, it was sharper than two-edged sword, to the dividing the bone and the marrow. And that’s what you saw when the woman’s hand was like this, and her leg was bent over, and she ran like a child.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: That’s what you saw this very day, this very week. That’s what you saw when the cripples marched around with their, uh, wheel– wheel– their– left their wheelchairs and had their crutches in hand to look like a parade on July fourth. You saw the Word dividing the bone from the marrow, and – now listen closely, listen closely – then the Word of God is – listen closely over there, somebody that needs to hear it. It’s a discerner of the thought, Hebrews 4:12 said, and it knows the intents of the heart. Here I told people things about their life. I told them about loved ones that they’d never spoke to anyone else. I told them about people that’d gone, when they’d gone. I told someone about things that only would be in her mind, when (stumbles over words) she’d grown flowers years ago. Only in her mind. Now that’s what the word of God is, and unless that comes into the church, your young people are going to read Mark Twain who shows the Bible in the Letters to the Earth to be full of errors. Or it’s gonna go into Common Sense with Age of Reason, written by Thomas Paine, who was one of the founding fathers of this country, he shows the Bible to be full of contradictions. And if you don’t have the power of the anointing, people, you’re gonna lose your children.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: Say, I– I don’t need, I– I take it by faith. Children aren’t doing it anymore. (Claps once) They’ve got to know what they’re doing, they’ve got to believe in what they’re doing, they’ve got to study to show themselves or prove rightly dividing the word of truth. Now, some think that’s rightly dividing King James. Well, in part, that is, but also truth comes out of prophets today. (Voice rises to ministerial fervor) The Word of God is still proceeding out of the mouth of God, the Word of God is still being made flesh today. I am bringing the Word of God out of this body right here in this atmosphere today, that healed cancers, and cause crippling diseases to be removed.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: (Voice moderates slightly, then rises to ministerial fervor) Now you that wanna har– uh, harness me back there, while– before I get in the door, about what I believe. And you want to harass me. Now, if King James doesn’t know who Jesus’ grandfather is, why are you worried about the letter? What you need is the spirit, and the spirit is love. God is love. Whosoever loveth is born of God. If I come with love, healing the sick, raising the dead, you don’t have a thing to worry about – it’s God! You can– There nothing for you to worry about. You don’t have anything to worry about!
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates) All good and perfect gifts come down from the Father above– lights, whom there’s no shadow of variableness nor turning. You have nothing to fear, because the other fella does not create love but he is a destroyer from the beginning. And it says, he will appear as an angel of light, and– in the Hebrew, that says he will camouflage as an angel of light. The Devil can never do a good thing. Whatever you call the Devil, it never healed one sick soul, it never fed one hungry child, it never took in one needy person, it never raised one dead person. Never. So you don’t have a thing to fear. If love is present, then it’s God. (pause) (Conversational tone, then rises) I hope you get the message. Some of you are so traditionalized. You are bound by the letter ‘til you judge everybody and everything by your little knothole. You miss God because you’re gonna listen to what King James of England said, who murdered little children, who was an alcoholic. King James of England, 1611, right there in your book. He was the drunkenest king that there was in England.
Congregation: (Scattered agreement)
Jones: He was a drunk. (Speaking slowly, pauses between phrases) Well now, are you saying that, uh, uh, that the truth is not there? Yes, it’s there, but what did I say? How can you hear without a prophet, as it says originally, how can he prophesy lest he be sent. Didn’t say you were saved by the foolishness of reading the Bible, it said you are saved by the foolishness of (pauses for effect) preaching. The man or woman that you’re sitting under doesn’t have the gifts of the spirit, doesn’t have the fruits of the spirit, doesn’t love children, doesn’t take in the needy, doesn’t heal the sick, doesn’t minister to the needs of humanity, I’d get outta that church, ‘cause you don’t need anybody just stand up reading to you out of the dead letter, because the Bible kills, but the spirit makes alive.
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
Jones: Now it’s just as plain as the nose on your face, if you’ll face it. ‘Cause all through, I’ve got a little booklet back there that, uh – The Letter Killeth, and it’s– uh, we never let money stand in your way, if you wish it – and I composed to show you some of the great truths in the Bible. (Voice rising) Say, how do you know what’s truth? How do I know when a person’s got cancer? How do I know what medicines they’re taking? How do I know what food they’re eating? How do I know what they’re thinking? Then if I know what you’re thinking, (in full throat) I should know what is truth and what is error!
Congregation: (Cheering and applause)
Jones: Because it’s the Word! It’s the Word that’s here. (Voice moderates slightly) The Word that’s sharper than a two-edged sword. I am fulfilling Hebrews 4:12. I’m living in the consciousness of the ever-presence of God. The actual conscious presence of God is the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh. It’s never been taken out of the flesh. The Word has always been in the flesh! He said, Lo, I am with you always even until the end of the world. I will not leave you nor forsake you, even unto the end of the world. Is it not true?
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: Why, after Jesus was buried and put in the tomb, he wasn’t in the tomb – hmm? – just a matter of a hours– just a matter of hours. And Mary come walkin’ out of the tomb, sorrowful and depressed in heart. Lowly in spirit. Depressed about the fact that they had laid her savior in the tomb. And she met a man by the way, the scripture says – didn’t it say it?
Voices in congregation: Yes.
Jones: She talked to this man by the way, and told him ‘bout how her savior’d been taken from her, and he was in the tomb. And Mary thought it was who?
Voices in congregation: Gardener.
Jones: (Voice rising to ministerial fervor) The Gardener. She said it was the gardener, but your Bible says it was Jesus Christ. He didn’t look the same, because Mary had been with him. She’d (Voice drops, then rises) bathed his feet, she’d supped with him for three years. She’d had him in her home, Mary and Martha had entertained him. But that same Jesus, that same spirit, that same anointing, had taken on another body, and she didn’t recognize him because she was looking for the same kind of hair and the same color of eyes and the same gestures, and thus she didn’t know the– (Voice drops) the mind of God. The word means mind. She failed to realize (taps pulpit while speaking) that God had already picked up another body, and she was so mixed up she called it the gardener. (In full throat) God always has had a body, God always will have a body, he’s never been without a body, and he always will have a body!
Congregation: (Calls and applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates, speaking away from microphone) The temple of the Holy Ghost, it’s simple enough what I preach. He said, know you not that you are the temple of the Holy Ghost. That your bodies are the tabernacle of God. (Returns to microphone) That means you– the temple means that you are God’s body. Now you’d look very funny if you, uh, had the body of a frog if you didn’t have the head of a frog.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: (Voice rises to ministerial fervor) If you’ve got the body of God, then you’ve got the mind of God. You won’t have the body of God until you have the mind of God. He said, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who, being in the form of God, considered it not robbery to be equal with God. That’s the mystery of which I have come to bring, to entertain your thoughts and aspirations, to enter into. Note what he said – to all of us – in Philippians 2, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who, being in the form of a slave – (voice moderates). Jesus come out of Nazareth. No good thing ever came out of Nazareth. No good thing ever came out of Nazareth.. But he said, (speaking slowly and deliberately) who, being in the form of a slave, considered it not robbery to be equal with God. Why has the church neglected this marvellous truth? Go home and read that, study that, think of that. Jesus who, being in the form of a servant – that’s slave – considered it not robbery to be equal with God. (Voice rising to full throat) That’s what you’ve gotta start thinking. You’re not– though you may be poor, though you may be the down-and-outs, though you may be the lowliest of low, you’ve got to say I consider it not robbery to be equal with God in every phase of my life.
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates) And that’s what I did. I prayed to the sky when I was a child, when I was by the railroad tracks, and nobody ever came out of the sky to help you. And God’s not a god that’s afar off, but at hand. Kingdom of heaven’s within you. Paul said, Don’t say in your heart, who shall ascend into heaven and bring him down and who shall descend into the deep and bring him up from the dead? But what sayeth it? The word is nigh thee, even in your mouth and in your heart! There’s where God is! While I was laying on that cold, cold northwestern bed, when the icicles used to just form on it in the mid-winter, (Voice moderates) you could see through the roof. People died around me when I prayed in the old-fashioned sense of tradition. I’d look to the sky. You can’t look to the sky for help. I quit lookin’ to the sky. I lost my grandfather, because this society– this society’s an evil society. If you’ve got money, you get things, if you don’t have money, you don’t get anything.
Congregation: (Murmurs agreement)
Jones: Time my grandfather was dying in my lap, I was just a child, lying beside me. We’d called for the– the doctor to come – Dr. Parker – to come and minister to him. His kidneys had failed, and all he needed was a shide of– shot of mercurhydrin. He could’ve been rejuvenated. But who were– the doctor was over on Millionaire Avenue, in Lynn, Indiana – that’s the city where I was born, over on Lynn, Indiana – the doctor was over there entertaining one of the rich members of the city who had a carbuncle. He was lancing a carbuncle. He said no, he couldn’t come. When I ran to the doctor, he said, no, I can’t come, I’m too busy. He was busy taking care of the rich. That’s the way it is in this society. If you got money, you get taken care of. And I prayed and I prayed and nobody came. (Claps hands, voice rising) Finally, something said look within, child, look within. And ever since that time, when I was just a knee-high to a grasshopper, just a little shaver, ever since those seven and eight years of age, I quit lookin’ up and I started lookin’ in, now nobody ever has died in my midst.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: (Speaking in ministerial fervor over congregation cheering) Anybody that comes to me dead is resurrected. Anybody that is sick and dying, I touch them and they’re healed. (In full throat) I don’t look up to the sky to bring God down, I don’t go down to the deep to bring him up from the dead, I just let him come out from within me! (Romans 10: 6-8) And he heals the sick, and he raises the dead, and it cures the blinded eye, and it causes the crippled to walk, and the lame to leap like a hart, (voice moderates abruptly) oh yes, God almighty.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: I found out where God was. And I’m trying to teach you where God is. For as I am, so shall you be, it is written. We ought to be one with him. That’s why they don’t want us to come to Seattle. They want you to have to come up and listen to that preacher, open that black book that kills. They want you to do that every Sunday and give him money, so he can ride around in a nice new car, while you barely keep body and soul together. He not gonna give you any life. If he was a true church – that’s why I said there’s no church in Seattle – if it’s a true church, it’ll take care of first the household of the faith. It’ll have its own sanitorium, even as I do. It’ll have its own senior citizen homes, even as I do. It’ll have its own orphanage home, children’s home, even as I do. It’ll have its own dormitories for its young people to be educated, even as I do. (Voice rising) That’s why I said I don’t know if you’ve got any church here, I don’t know of anyone. I don’t think there’s a church in Seattle. There’s no church here that’s got a– Truth anyhow, it may hurt, it may pinch your toes, but it’s the truth anyhow, brothers.
Congregation: (Scattered murmurs, applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates, taps pulpit) Building. You think buildings– where in the New Testament they ever have a building? They went to the house of Chloe and they went to the house of this one and the house of that one. They went from house to house breaking bread. They didn’t go into great big cathedrals, and where they had nice organs and comfortable pews, and an old stony building, as as mackerel where they used that one hour on Sunday. You– What are you talkin’ about the church? You don’t know anything about church. You’ve got a lot of reason to question me. I’m living Christianity.
Congregation: (Calls)
Jones: You oughta just walk on and follow in my example, because I’m living the words of Jesus. (In full throat) Say, you want to know what I preach. What’s the difference what I preach? It’s what I live! I– While you’re preaching Christ, I’m going about, from city to city, living Christ in deeds and actions! I’m letting Christ have a body! I’m letting God be personified! I’m letting God be tabernacled in the earth! (Pauses, voice moderates as congregation quietens) Got all kinds of teachers. Got all kinds of traditions. Got churches on every corner, each saying something else. As I said in our magazine, so very, very true. By the way, you can get the magazine. We appreciate it if you pay for it, if you can’t, we’ll let you have it. Mother [Marceline] LeTourneau’s got a lovely message in it, too, it’s out there at the desk, just as those pictures that’ve been anointed for various needs. Ask them for what need you’re concerned, they’ve been anointed for various needs, and we have now over seventeen hundred testimonies in this last couple of months of miracles wrought by contact through the picture. There– she’s showing the magazine over there. Now as I– I was saying. As I was saying. (Pauses) Churches everywhere. It’s like the old tho– sought: there’s water, water everywhere, but there’s not a drop to drink.
Congregation: (Murmurs)
Jones: Got baptistries in every corner, and you’ve got all kinds of water, but it’s polluted. If you drink it, you’d– you’ll– you’ll poison yourself. So there’s water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. It’s just like I said in the magazine, it’s churches– if there’s three churches on a corner, they oughta sing these songs, because that’s certainly what they act like. One singing “Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown?”, the other church across the way says, “No, Not One,” and the other church over on the other corner says, “Oh, That Will Be Glory For Me.”
Congregation: (Laughter)
Jones: (Voice rising over laughter and applause) That’s the attitude. That’s the attitude of churches today. Fight. (Pauses while applause continue) Send each other to hell over they– they strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Feud and fight over one little jot and tittle. One little issue. They’re going to– arguing with someone back there wanted to say, Do you believe you’re gonna go up in the rapture before the tribulation? I said, What do you wanna know that for? Said, It’s very important to me. I can’t be here if you don’t tell me. I said, Well, brother, if that’s all the ba– reason you’ve come, to find out whether I’m– I believe in the rapture before the tribulation or after the tribulation, you’re not gonna get any good out of this service anyway. I never saw so many people ask me questions, just one right after another. Soon as I hit this place. You– you worried about little old puny things. You strain at gnats, and you swallow camels. I personally believe you’re not gonna get raptured until you go through the tribulation, but that doesn’t make any difference one way or the other. (Speaking faster, voice rising) Tribulation works with patience, patience experience, experience hope. Said, if it were not for the elect’s sake and the day is shortened, there would be no flesh saved. If the elect are some place up in the sky, why do the days have to be shortened for their sake? I personally believe we’re in the tribulation right now. I think it has begun, I think we’re right in the tribulation now, and I don’t think there’s gonna be any translation until we’re first perfected, ‘til we go through tribulation. (Voice moderates) But what’s the difference? What is the difference? You know. If we have love, we are his disciples. He said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, because you have–
Voice in congregation: Love.
Jones: –love one for another. (Brief pause) Well, I hope I’ve said enough to stir up your pure minds. And I wish you’d quit trying to judge me by the dead letter, ‘cause the dead letter without someone such as I in the prophetic anointing, you cannot even hear without me. How can you hear without a preacher, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. So quit worrying about the dead letter. The dead letter doesn’t even know where Jesus went after he was born. One writer says he went into Egypt to flee from Herod. Another gospel writer – because King James has got it mixed up – said he stayed every year in the– Jerusalem and kept the feast of the Passover. Don’t you argue. Don’t nod your head until you read it. Better go and read it. (Voice rising) You– you prove to me where Jesus ascended to. Can you prove to me which mountain he ascended from? There’s two different mountains named in the Bible as to where Jesus ascended, and one imper– impression is that he ascended from the Last Supper. I’m losin’ a lot of folk here ‘cause they don’t like the truth. Truth sets you free.
Congregation: (Scattered agreement)
Jones: You shall know the truth, but the truth shall set you free. And you don’t want the truth, ‘cause you don’t wanna get free. You want– you– you know why most people like their little narrow knotholes? They wouldn’t feel comfortable if they didn’t have a hell to dangle somebody over.
Congregation: (Murmurs)
Jones: Hmm?
Male voice in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: That’s true. (Pause) Just lost– just lost one there. He– he– he would be uncomfortable if he didn’t have a hell to dangle somebody over. ‘Cause he’s got it all figured out, how he’s gonna dangle everybody over hell he doesn’t like. He didn’t get saved because he loved people, he got saved because he hated people. He took great joy in sending this one to hell and that one to hell, and (stumbles over words) take great joy in the fact that he’s going to heaven and others are going to hell. (Voice rising) Well, as for me and my house, I see the greater truths of the Bible that’ve eluded King James. I see things there that are so vast and so beautiful– He said, as in Adam, all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. That’swhat I dwell on. I don’t see anybody gonna have to be left outside of the Ark of God’s covenant. No. (Pause) (speaks quietly, them climbs) Jesus said, the heavens will contain him until the time of restitution of all things spoken by the prophet. Said, Jesus said, he saw the travail of his soul and was satisfied. He said, if I be lifted up, I’ll draw all men unto me. I tell you that God through the scripture tells you that Cornelius was saved in his household. Was it not?
Congregation: (Murmurs agreement)
Jones: (Voice rising to full throat) God saved Cornelius in his household. The apostle said, this is a promise, that he’ll save you in your household. Let me tell you, if God would make that promise to that rich Greek and wouldn’t make it to you, he’d be guilty of discrimination. I’m here to tell you that God is gonna save you and your household. He may take his time. It may be not in your time, but sooner or later every knee shall bow (moves away from microphone) and every tongue shall confess of things on the earth, of things and above the earth, of things under the earth, and all shall acknowledge that he is God!
Congregation: (Cheering, applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates, speaking over congregation) Sure, I won’t get a lot of people. You’ve never heard these things. Uh, some of you– some of you have– some of you got deep hearts. (Returns to microphone) There only about fifty of you in Seattle, ‘cause I’ve lost about forty since I started preaching this in the last five minutes.
Congregation: (hubbub)
Jones: (Voice rises sharply, then moderates) Why do you want to hold on to a narrow little hell doctrine like you’ve held on to, when you don’t even know who Jesus’ grandfather is? When you don’t know what happened to Jesus when he was baptised with the Holy Ghost? One says he went where? To the wilderness, for forty days. Directly. Right?
Congregation: (agrees)
Jones: The other one says that three days later he was over at Cana, Galilee, having a good time turning water into the wine. That’s eighty miles from the wilderness. Well, don’t you argue with me, honey, get that yellow book back there, The Letter Killeth. You’ve been brainwashed, they’ve brain– they’ve taken your brain and done with it what they want, and you refuse to do any thinking. Say, well, how am I to know the truth? You’ll not have to worry, because God’ll always have (in full throat) somebody speaking for him! He’ll have somebody that’s anointed! He’ll have manifested sons that will show his works! You don’t have to worry about the dead letter. You don’t have to live by the letter. But you can live by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God! You don’t have to worry about that.
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates) You see what happened if we quit livin’ by the letter. We’d put some of these preachers out of business, and we’d make ‘em seek God and get somethin’ for themselves instead of a dead, dead old tradition. We’d make them have to go back to school – in the school of the Holy Ghost – and get moved on by the Holy Ghost, and get the truthof the Holy Ghost, and they wouldn’t be able to stand up and clob– You say, it’s in the book. It’s in the book. There’s a lot of things in the book, but not necessarily so.
Congregation: (Murmurs)
Jones: And they stand on what’s in the book, and that’s all they got to offer you. They wouldn’t feed a child, they wouldn’t adopt a baby, they wouldn’t take in an older person, they wouldn’t go across the street to help somebody that fell down, but they just keep you right under the book. You have got an idol. (Taps pulpit) You’ve got a graven image. And he said, have no graven images. This is a graven image. If you don’t have the spirit of this book, you are an idolatrous person. You are ha– worshipping an idol, and not the spirit of God. (In ministerial fervor) The Bible’s not God, and you’d better find it out! The Bible’s not the Holy Ghost!
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates) Boy, they’re– they’re clearin’ out of here. Crippled and sick, dyin’ of cancer, and people that I need to heal, but you creep out of here when you oughta stay, where the spirit of God’s conscious presence is, because in my house – the Father’s house – there’s been no dying, there’s been no sickness, no disease, we’re happy and blessed. And you want to go back? Why, I felt just a moment ago, some sister, she had to get down that aisle, she wanted to get a good night’s rest, so she could go up in that old church tomorrow she’s sittin’ in. She wanted to be there early, and all they’ll do have the same preliminaries, have the same anthem, same dead prayer. Pass the same old plates, and the same communion, Sister Thomas. Same old communion. And the same old dead sermon, and you’ll go away feeling the same dead way you felt when you came in.
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: (Voice rising) ‘Cause they haven’t got the goods. They’re not doing anything. He said, what we need today is (in full throat) living Bibles! Jesus said, you– we need living Bibles! He said, you are living epistles! Living Bibles! Read and known of all men! (Speaking away from microphone over congregation cheering and applause) That’s what I am! Don’t ask me what I believe! I’m a living Bible! I’m doing the works of God! I have come to make Jesus real! I have given my body! I have given my hands! I have given my voice! I’ve given my mind.
Congregation: (Cheering, applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates, speaking over congregation hubbub) So sweet to see some of these older children down– you got your grey hair can understand this, this is something the younger ones trippin’ out. Good God almighty. Why don’t we get the truth in our hearts? It’s the truth that will set you free. Said after the Holy Ghost has come, he’ll lead you and guide you through Romans and Th– Thessalonians (returns to microphone) and Timothy. There was a– was that what it said? That the Holy Ghost has come, he will lead and guide you through Corinthians. (Suddenly in full throat) No! He didn’t say that! Said when the Holy Ghost is come, he’ll lead you and guide you into all truth!
Congregation: (Cheering)
Jones: (Speaking over congregation, in full throat away from microphone) You’ll keep on hearing from God, God will still be making (unintelligible word), God will be making Bibles everyday, he’ll be saying the words.
Congregation: (Cheering)
Jones: (Voice moderates) Hallelujah. Someone said to me, you got all you got in the book. Can’t do it. Jesus said – Jesussaid – the following things in the last chapter of John. Jesus said, (returns to microphone, voice rising slowly to full throat) if all the things he had begun to both do and teach were written in the book, the world would not be able to contain the books. So all the works of Jesus is not in the Bible. Uh, the last chapter of Saint John proves that. All the sayings of Jesus is not in the Bible. All the actions of Jesus is not in the Bible. You don’t have Jesus in a black book. You’ve got Jesus when you’ve got the Holy Ghost, healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the hungry, taking in the needy of the world. That’s the Holy Ghost, when he, the spirit of truth, is come!
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: (Voice moderates; speaking away from microphone) So sweet. So sweet to know God. They had me on that poor farm, lookin’ up through the sky and tellin’ me to look up to the sky and pray, and always to wait for heaven. You see, the truths have been kept from you by preachers that couldn’t produce a good. If you cannot make a heaven, you’ve got to promise a heaven. If you cannot give health, you’ve gotta give somebody a promissory note. You’ve gotta tell ‘em, by and by, you’ve got shoes, I’ve got shoes, all God’s children got shoes. If you can’t conquer death now, you’ve gotta say by and by, there’ll be no dying. By and by, there’ll be no sickness.
Congregation: (Murmurs)
Jones: Come on.
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: Truth anyhow. So they got you on a false– (stumbles over words) They give you a lick and a promise. Lick and a promise. Everything gone be by and by. You’re hungry? By and by, you’ll be fed. (Voice rising) If you have injustice, by and by it’ll be all worked out. (Returns to microphone) If you’re oppressed because of your color, by and by everybody’ll be equal. If you got no shoes now, by and by you’ll have shoes and you’ll walk all over God’s heaven. And the preacher, he stands up and got the nerve to tell you that ridin’ around in a Cadillac, and you listen to him. You’re something else. You’re something else!
Congregation: (Calls, applause)
Jones: (Over congregation applause) Sick as you can be. Sick as you can be. Hungry. No decent homes to live in. No people in my apostolic church are homeless. No one that doesn’t have– Every one of my senior citizens have better homes and better food than I do, because such is the gospel. You lay down your life for your friends. You prefer your brother over yourself. But some of you, you don’t have a place to live hardly, you don’t have a decent place, and you got some jackleg preacher standin’ up, driving up in a fancy air-conditioned car, telling you that by and by, you’re gonna have a cabin on a hilltop. And he’ll tell you, now, don’t you– don’t you worry. Jesus is comin’ very soon. It’s all, he’s comin’ very soon. And the preacher is always getting a new suit every week or every month, and he’s getting him a new car every year. And getting him a newer home and getting fancier clothes, and there’s a anniversary for him every year and a pastor’s appreciation, pastor’s wife tea, but he tells you Jesus is coming soon. (Voice rises) He don’t act like Jesus is coming soon. He acts like you’re a bunch of fools and he’s takin’ all of your money, that’s what he acts like.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Speaking over congregation cheering) That’s why those rascals– That’s why those rascals have come here, and tried to get the man here that did a good job fired. That’s why they tried to get us uh, tr– trouble for parking, had people come out and give us, uh, tickets, called up the departments to give us tickets, tried to block us from renting every building in this town. Why don’t you think? Don’t you know why they don’t want me to come to town? Because they’re afraid I’ll give you the truth and you’ll get free and you won’t give ‘em any more money to buy their Cadillacs or their nice cars!
Congregation: (cheers and applause)
Jones: That’s what they’re scared to death about. That’s what they– they’re all upset about. That you’re gonna get free. That you’re gonna be so free that you don’t have to go and sit under their garbage anymore. That you’re gonna say, I’m the bishop of my soul. I’m the captain of my fate. I am the Son of God. I am the temple of the Holy Ghost. Who are you? (Pause) (Ministerial fervor) Who are you, preacher? Just because you’ve got a black collar on? Who are you, because you sit up in a black robe? I am just as important as you are. I am one with God. I am a living epistle. (Voice moderate slightly) They know you’re gonna get the truth, and they don’t want you to get the truth.
Congregation: (Cries of agreement)
Jones: You see what I’m doing? (Voice rises to ministerial fervor) We’re starting just shortly– We’re gonna send out– I’ve got an ordination, I’m gonna send out people just like me with this gift. (Speaks over applause) Send ‘em here, there, and everywhere. Gonna stir up the gifts by the laying on of hands and I’m gonna send them all– everywhere I can to stir up the people. Because I want you to have everything I have, and more!
Congregation: (Cheering, applause)
Jones: (ministerial fervor) I want you to be what I am and more! I want you to take cognizance of my teachings. If you’ll take cognizance of my teachings, and listen to my sayings, you can reproduce a greater picture of me than even I am reproducing. (Voice moderates) Jesus said, These things shall you do and greater, because I go to the Father . Say, my whole purpose is to get you just like me.
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
Jones: (Speaks over applause) Just like God. To get you to see all the good that I might have, and get all the good that God has for you. I want to stir up every gift in you. I want to cause you to jump out into the, uh– the unfamiliar territory and go out by promise like Abraham did, and become your own temple and become your own Bible and become your own oracle and become your own (breathily) God. (Pause) What do you think would happen, if all of you would recognize who you are? If each of you would stand on your own feet, and be independent of mortality. And would deliver the world as a living Bible. That’s what he said: be living epistles, read and known of all men. What do you think would happen to Seattle if each one of you said, I am the temple of God, and you went out to these dead churches and you went into the highways and hedges, and you went from hospital room to, uh, room, if you learn these sayings and get around and get some of this anointing I’ve got– (In ministerial fervor) what do you think would happen to Seattle if you’d get what I’ve got inside of me plus more? Get all that you can get, plus more? (Voice moderates) That’s right. Reverend Swanson down there– the pas– the ministers of Seattle couldn’t stand it. (Pauses) But first, get rid of that which hinders your soul growth. I did not intend to preach so long, but I need to preach so long because some of you are still in bondage. You say, I’ve come to get healed. Well, the way you get healed, and stay healed, is two different things. I can heal you because I’ve uh, riven– uh, risen to a point of faith. If I can just touch you, and bring a healing. But if you keep healed, you have to get inside you what’s inside of me. The Holy Ghost, the anointing. The comforter. The spirit of bravery. Comforter means, in the Hebrew, come-forte: with bravery. I’m not afraid of any devil. I’m not afraid of anything coming or going, whether it’s animal or man, mineral or vegetable, I’m not afraid of anything. And I want you to get the same spirit in you, because when you get that spirit in you – the same spirit that raised (voice rises to full throat) Christ from the dead, (Voice moderates, then rises to ministerial fervor) then we’ll have victory around Seattle. Then we’ll have victory in Vancouver. Then we’ll have victory up there in B.C. Power of God’ll be manifest.
Congregation: (applause)
Jones: (Voice quietens) So as I said, study a little bit. Because (brief pause) this – the Bible – without the Spirit is the deadliest murderous weapon of all time. It’ll kill. Now, you don’t want to murder anybody. But this is what Second Corinthians 3:6 tells you: if you don’t have the Spirit, it’ll kill you. Now I know some of you have never heard that in your life, that the Bible was a murderer. (Brief pause) But that’s what I’m saying. And I’m telling you, when I listen to those people tell me that grandpa had to die – a good man, a good man – ‘cause some doctor wasn’t living by the apostolic principle of sharing, was over on Millionaire Avenue, and I prayed and the heavens were brass, and my granddaddy died while that old rich man got his carbuncle lanced over on Millionaire Avenue. I quit then. I give up on prayin’ outside of myself. I started lookin’ inside. And ever since that day – and my people can tell you that – some of the people been with me for twenty-five years, and I’ve got people been with me longer than that. Sister [Edith] Cordell, who cuts our hair, I healed her of cancer, well, way back twenty-something years ago. She was wasting away with cancer. And she now cuts our hair and she’s adopted eighteen children and she’s still– she’s way past her three-score and ten, and she cuts all of our hair free in the Temple family. (Taps pulpit to emphasize words) Now, way back when I stopped lookin’ to the sky for my help – lookin’ to the Skygod – and started lookin’ to the God within me, nobody has died in my presence. (Voice rises) I’ve gone to the hospital when they were gasping, and they raised up. I’ve gone– you’ve seen ‘em bring ‘em down the aisles, how many’ve seen them? Twenty-four of them this year, twenty-four– (Voice rising) Bring ‘em up, carry ‘em up, no matter how. The– this sister’s around carrying those pictures. They carried her up like a stiff board! But no one’s died in my presence since I found out where heaven was. (In full throat) Since I found that heaven was not speculation. That heaven was not a state of imagination, but heaven was within me and it had all the power (voice moderates) that that imaginary heaven was supposed to have, and more. (Pause) It’ll raise the dead. It’ll heal the sick. It’ll cured the blinded eyes, if you will let heaven come forth in you. (Pause) So quit worryin’ about what I believe. Worry what I do. Said, you’ll know a tree by the fruit it bears. Not by what it– what it believes, (short laugh) but what kind of fruit it bears. You know that tree by what fruit it bears. (Pause) You know, if we don’t have that spirit, if we don’t have love– Someone in here– Stop, I’m trying to answer a few little questions here before we quit this and go into the healings. We’ve had some healings already, and I– I think truth is very important, because if you get what I’m saying, you’ll be able to do what I’m doing. (Voice rises) See, that’s what I’m after, is to get you to be where I’m at, not for me to have to touchyou. If a doctor is a good doctor, he’ll try to train others to be a doctor. (Voice rises more) I don’t want you to have to keep comin’ to me to get remedies. I want you to be able to find the remedy that I’ve got inside me that’ll remedy all problems satisfactory. (Pause) (Voice turns conversational) If we don’t have love– someone in– and in back there and said, I hear you say that Buddhists can be saved. That Mahatma Gandhi was saved. Is that true? Sister said. I said, who are you to judge Mahatma Gandhi? It’s not your business to judge Mahatma Gandhi. (Pauses) One meeting, while back here, in this place– This is always question. This is– Seattle is Question Town. Said, I heard you say good words about Pope John [XXIII]. Do you believe Pope John was saved? I believe Pope John was a de– an apostle of love. I believe he did a lot of sweet, lovely things, and I think that’s why he died prematurely. I think some folk wanted him dead in the Catholic church, to be very frank about it. I think God’s got people everywhere, in every church, in every movement. (Voice rising to ministerial fervor) And that’s the only thing that’s gonna turn our kids on. That old hellfire and brimstone, the furniture of heaven and the temperature of hell’s not gonna turn our kids on anymore. We’re gonna have to get something else. They’ve had enough of it! They don’t want no more of it! (Voice moderates) It’s gonna have to be love that covers a multitude of sins. If you don’t get that love, you can preach to them, because they’re not scared of devils or demons or all packs of demons, you’re– you’re not gonna scare them into kingdom of heaven. In fact of the matter, what do you succeed in doing when you scare somebody into the church, you just got a coward. (Pause) You’ve just got a coward.
Male voice in congregation: Amen.
Jones: (Voice rising to ministerial fervor) But when you love somebody into the church of God, you’ve got a savior. You’ve got somebody that cares. You’ve got somebody that’ll lose their life that they might find it. You’ve got somebody that is touched by the feelings of people’s infirmities. But when you scare somebody in, you’ve just got an old sniveling coward. (Pause) (Speaks quietly) Hmph.
(Lengthy pause)
Jones: I (pause) hope that you will study this with some concentration, and you’ll see that the spirit within me has led. How can you hear without a preacher, as I said, and you are saved by preaching, and I have preached. Here’s [The Letter Killeth] some marvellous truths. And I’ve shown you some things that cause your young people to be disturbed. And the next time they’re disturbed, you can say, I don’t mind, darling, if you’re disturbed over the letter. Come, and I’ll show you a man who is letting God use him. That’s how I show you that God exists. That I– that’s how I show you that there’s a love in the universe. That’s how I will show you that Christ Jesus’ teachings are real. Because there’s a man over here that’s doing the works of Christ. (Speaks faster) Because if you show him the Bible, he’ll say, well, huh, Thomas Paine didn’t believe in the Bible. Thomas Jefferson didn’t believe in the Bible. Abraham Lincoln didn’t believe in the Bible. Neither did [Ralph Waldo] Emerson believe in the Bible. And then certainly, uh, Mark Twain – Letters to the Earth – didn’t. Or Mark, uh, and, uh, Thomas Paine. Look at this, my child. Just things like this. Judges 1:19. I don’t think I have that in this book. But I’ll give you. It isn’t in this book, I don’t think, but I– there’s one verse like this. Judges 1:19, where is that in the b– in the book? Said God was able to save, what?
Man in congregation: The inhabitants of the valley.
Jones: The inhabitants of the valley. Now think of that. But he could not save – what? (Pauses) Hmm? (Pauses) The inhabitants of the mountains, because of what?
Man in congregation: (Murmured reply, quoting Judges 1:19)
Jones: They had chariots of iron. Get it back there, brother. Read that to me. Judges 1:19. (Shushes congregation, pauses) Real loud.
Man in congregation: (Reading loudly, away from microphone) And the Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants (microphone brought to him) of the mountains.
Jones: He drave out– He drave out, now I want you to notice that, too. He drave out. King James didn’t even have his English straight. You don’t drave out. You drive out. But you don’t– and you can drove out, but you don’t drave out. Come on.
Male voice in congregation: (Begins reading) But–
Jones: (Speaking over reader) He drave out–
Male voice in congregation: (Reading aloud, amplified by microphone) But could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley.
Jones: Now read that back again. Say that– say that all over again.
Male voice in congregation: (Reading) And the Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountains.
Jones: The Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain, but he couldn’t drove out–
Male voice in congregation: (Begins reading) But he–
Jones: (Speaking over reader) The inhabitants of the valley because they had what?
Male voice in congregation: (Reading) They had chariots of iron.
Jones: Now isn’t that too bad. God, according to that book, couldn’t handle chariots of iron.
Congregation: (Laughter)
Jones: (Voice rises sharply to ministerial fervor) What kind of God do you think that is? Not my God! I’ve seen my God stop the rain!
Congregation: (Loud cheers and applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates slightly, speaking over congregation) When the rains were falling. When they throwed us out of the building two years ago, we had no place. We didn’t have an aged home, didn’t have a convalescent home then, didn’t have anything, had nothing but a field. All winter long, the rains pour in northern California. But not a drop of rain fell on our heads. When the cars came up to our circle, they were rained on – it poured down on them – but no rain came on us. (Voice rises to ministerial fervor) My God can stop the rain! My God can open the prison doors! My– my God can cause the blind to see–
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Speaking over congregation cheers) –and the deaf to hear, and the lame to walk! (Isaiah 35:4-6) (Voice moderates) But King James is so fouled up, that he says the Lord God of Judah could clear out the inhabitants of the mountains ‘cause they didn’t have any chariots of iron. But he couldn’t get rid of those folks in the valley because they had chariots of iron. (Voice rises sharply, then moderates) What kind of God does King James present to you? And I– I– I’ve got a thousand like that, like, just a thousand like it. Things that will turn children’s stomach. Like Jephthah, a prophet of God, was supposed to’ve made a covenant with God to win a battle at Aye [Aroer]. Said, if I win this battle at Aye, I will make sacrifice of the first one that comes through my– my door. Don’t tell me it’s not in the book. It’s in the book.
Female voice in congregation: Right. It’s true.
Jones: (Voice slowly rising) And so Jephthah won the battle of Aye, and he had to murder his daughter because she was the first one that came through the door. Two months she went about bemoaning her fate – according to King James – and after that, he kept the vow which he made unto Jehovah. And that meant, under Jewish law, he had to burn her alive.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: (In ministerial fervor) Now don’t tell me God approved of that. God is love! (Claps hands once) King James doesn’t know what God is! How can an alcoholic king know anything about God? How can a man that got eighty tin makers (voice moderates) just like himself know anything about God? How can somebody that took the blacks and put ‘em in chains on the first ship Good Ship Jesus, and brought ‘em over here in slavery, and persecuted the early American colonists, and killed off the Indians under his jurisdiction, how in the world can you tell me that he knows God? And yet there’s some of you folk that’ll hold that book up in front of you and say, It was good enough for Paul. It was good enough for Paul, so it’s good enough for me.
Congregation: (Scattered applause and agreement)
Jones: (In full throat, speaking over congregation) Paul never saw that book! Look inside, honey, before you frown at me! Look in there. It says 1611! That means sixteen hundred and eleven years after Jesus Christ was born! (Pause) (Voice moderates) You know that folk won’t tell the truth on me sixteen hundred and eleven minutes after they get outta this room.
Congregation: (Scattered laughter)
Jones: They’re gonna have it all twisted up, and folk are gonna tell every kind of story you ever heard before they get home sixteen hundred and eleven seconds! I know that there’s a brother went down the street, and he won’t be sixteen a hundred and eleven seconds down that street before he’ll have a whole different story told on what really happened here. (Voice rises to full throat) So how do you expect an alcoholic king of England – go study your history – to tell the truth about God? That’s why you can not hear without a preacher, and he can’t preach lest he be sent. That’s why you have to have apostles, pastors, teachers, evangelists for the perfecting! (Pause) Perfecting, did you hear me? For the perfecting of the saints! You’re not perfected by Bibles, you are perfected by the manifestation of the sons of God! That’s what’s will perfect you.
Congregation: (Cheers, applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates, speaking away from microphone) Good God almighty. And in this one page, just one verse, not all the pages – one page. (Reading from The Letter Killeth) Abraham had only one son. Hebrews 11:17: by faith Abraham offered up Isaac, his only (returns to microphone) begotten son. Galatians 4:22: For it is written that Abraham had what?
Male in congregation: Two.
Jones: Two sons. Keturah was Abraham’s wife. Or was he his– was she his concubine? I’m just giving you just one paragraph, then I’m quittin’. Genesis 25:1: Then Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. (Voice rises sharply) (unintelligible word)? Took a wife, and her name was Keturah. Not according to First Chronicles 1:32. Keturah, Abraham’s (pauses for effect) concubine. His whore.
Congregation: (Quiet murmur)
Jones: Now, honey, there’s quite a difference between being a whore and a wife.
Congregation: (Laughter)
Jones: Wouldn’t you say (laughs)
Congregation: (Laughter)
Jones: Let that sister get her false teeth back in there.
Congregation: (laughter, scattered applause)
Jones: (Voice rises to full throat) I said, if you’re a wife, you’re not a concubine. If you’re a concubine, you’re not a wife. That means you’re a mistress! You’re a kept woman! (Voice moderates) Not a legal wife. And I can go through that and through that and through that and through that. You can’t get facts. One place you’ve got the devil numbering Israel, and the other place it said God numbered Israel. Say, why do you tell me this? I don’t need to tell you that, because some of you don’t think it wouldn’t bother you one way or the other. But your children are gonna think. And the young people you influence are gonna think. And when you hold up that black book, they’re gonna ask you some questions and you better have some good answers. But there’s one thing you cannot deny when they come up, (voice rising to full throat) say, I can tell you– I can show you a man that’s showed me all things that I had ever done!
Congregation: (cheers)
Jones: (full throat) That knew nothing about me but told me the thought of my mind! I can show you that God is still working in the church! That God is still healing the sick! That God is still ministering (voice moderates) to the needs of man.
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: That they can’t deny. Come in, they see cripple like that woman that we saw with her hands. I mean, bent like that. And her leg bent– her leg bent under, and just straightened it out. (Voice rises sharply) Nobody, no atheist, no agnostic, no communist, no fascist, nobody’ll be able to deny what they see with their own eyes!
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: (In full throat) You gonna testify to that which you see and hear! Not what somebody says is in the Bible! But you’ll testify to that (moves away from microphone) which you see and you hear! And you have seen the lame walk! You have seen the blind see! You have seen the cancers come out through this building, even today! What you talking about! God is here!
Congregation: (Responds)
Jones: I shall finish on that. I’ve said enough. Get the booklet. (unintelligible sentence) Finish it anyway, but if it’s too much for you, what’ll happen is, you go home and uh, you’ll be afraid that you’re not able yet to manifest the fullness of the Spirit of God, and the temptation is to go back to the security of mother’s womb, rather than stand on your own feet. Say, I can’t build a church like Jim Jones. I can’t feed the hungry. I can’t heal the sick. I can’t do this. And so you drift back with all the other trespassers. You say, I like the music. (Pause) That’s a poor excuse, child. I said that’s a poor excuse. I hope tomorrow morning, as some of you folk, when you drift back, and you set in those churches, I hope you think real good. I want you to look around at those poor mothers that are in that church and don’t have any home. I want you to look around at those children that have not had any place to give them care and comfort. I want you to look at that great big old building that has nothing in it but seats and a new organ. The organ that we play, I bought with my own money, twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, I carried that organ, bought that organ, we carried it from Canada to Los Angeles to uh, New York, that same organ’s still playing because I anointed it with God-given money. I sacrificed to get it, and we don’t need a new organ. You don’t need a new organ. (Pause) (Quiet) You know what I’m talking about. All you’ll see tomorrow when you go in is just organs and pianos. And pews. But no place – (breathily) my God – no place for the hungry, no place to take care of the strangers.
Congregation: (Stirs)
Jones: Shh. Matthew 25 told you how you could find him. Preacher tells you to get ready for the rapture, and he’s gonna rupture you, not rapture you.
Congregation: (Light laughter)
Jones: He’s literally gonna rupture your life. That’s what’s gonna happen to you. You gonna be ruptured in your spiritual life. ’Cause Jesus said, if you want to find me, he said, I am hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I’m naked, and you didn’t clothe me. I’m a stranger, and you didn’t take me in. I’m sick in prison, and you did not come unto me. And those good churches trampers will say, when did we see you hungry? And he’ll say, well, I was hungry in an old apartment building in Seattle. I was a poor little child in the Appalachian mine country. I was a poor little black child in some ghetto, I was a poor little Indian child on a reservation, I was hungry, and you didn’t come to me. He said, in that you did it not unto the least of these, you did it not unto me. And he said, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. You want to find Jesus? That’s how you’ll find him. Look out a ho– and see around you, who’s hungry, and you better become God to them, just as he was God to those in the Nazareth degree. You’ll have to become a savior to those around you. (Voice rises to full throat) You’ll have to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, if you want to find your God. (Voice drops) That’s how you’re gonna have to find him.
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
Jones: (Voice climbs throughout) God won’t be found in these stinking churches. Having a form of God in this denying the power, rich increased of goods and needing nothing. Fine organs and fine chanceries and fine cymbals and fine clarion bells and plush seats, while all over Seattle and every community in Canada and America, there’s hungry– there’s hungry, two out of three babies according to the Washington government, the US government, two out of three babies going to bed hungry, and we’re building a church on every block, and two and three in every block, and some of them got the same name, and they split over whether you play music in the church, or you don’t play music in the church. (Voice drops) I’ll tell you, I don’t know what poor sinner’s to do these days. (Pause) One that got the True Vine Baptist, and the only True Vine Baptist, and the Primitive Baptist, and the Pure Baptist and the American Baptist and the Southern Baptist and the Northern Baptist. Good God Almighty, we don’t need any more Baptists, we need Jesus (tape distortion)–
End of tape