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Unidentified male voice: Testing one two three, testing one two three, testing one two three, testing one two three, testing—
Jones: —or black. I rather suspect it was the latter, because my family tree was suddenly disposed of, because we came back from one of the kings in England. they were so pl— proud of that family tree, but I, I smelled, as the old whites used to say nastily, I smelled sweetly, a nigger in the woodpile.
Laughter and applause.
Jones: So I went to look at my family tree, because my father was such an autocrat and he was such an aristocrat and such a blowhard and such a mean soul, that he was trying to hide something. He talked too much against blacks and Jews. I knew something was wrong with this man. He talked down about the Indians, and I knew when people start kicking others, they’re hiding something themselves.
Laughter and applause.
Jones: Hmm? So I got that family tree — the original one, they’d taken the one out of the courthouse, and they had— oh, it was all prettied up and had a seal on it and it was surrounded with a silver trim or gold trim — it was just beautiful. But I went to the courthouse and I searched and I searched and I went way back to South Carolina and I found that Grandma went out to somebody’s back cabin.
Laughter and applause.
Jones: And when I came home and told my dad what I found, he didn’t talk about family trees anymore. He forbade me to speak, and he kicked me out of the house, because I had found out what’s happened to many, many millions in this land, across the land — some of you’re here, you think you’re white and you got that, that inner soul spirit and you feel that vibration for freedom and you got that love for oh, justice and — and then there is something to this, an intrinsic appreciation for art and aesthetics and rhythm, and you feel it in you and you look white, but honey, a nigger slipped in your woodpile somewhere.
Laughter, cheers and applause.
Jones: No people on earth has the beauty of drums and rhythm and dance like the Africans, long before all this so-called Christian civilization and oh the synchronization, every step, every movement, the harmony, and the great creative worship that is expressed in African dance and African song, and some of you whites, you danced (stretched for emphasis) (unintelligible word), you look white, but honey, you’re a nigger like Father Jim. I know you are.
Cheers and applause.
Jones: (Shouts, preacher’s voice) Anyone in America who’s poor — white, brown, yellow, or black — and does not admit that he’s a nigger is a damn fool.
Cheers and applause.
Jones: (Lowers voice) Because nigger means— niggardly means to be treated cheatedly. You’ve been cheated. And we know Indians and blacks and poor whites have been cheated, don’t we?
Assent and applause.
Jones: So nobody’s going to cause me to bow my head low. My son, Jim Jones Jr., who’s black, I legally adopted — they used to send him home crying when they’d spit on him or something or call that word “nigger”— they quit spitting because he got too big. He’s taller than I am now, 12— you, you say anything to him, you spit now, and your teeth will end up down in your toes.
Cheers and applause.
Jones: But he said that word hurt, and so I turned that word around in my home, and I made it the proudest word for the chosen people. I said, yes we’re niggers and we’re proud. And now we say that word and our children don’t get worried. The last time little Jim was called “nigger,” he said, sticks and stones may break my bones, but you’re sure— certainly not going to hurt me with that word, because that’s the best word in the world.
Applause.
Jones: I started to take an offering. I started to have a tape played to save the voice. But that didn’t work out just as we would like to have it work out, so I end up preaching.
Cheers and applause.
Jones: —’Cause I preach and speak 20 to 22 hours a day. Doctors are amazed at my voice, they say it’s amazing that I can ever open my mouth or even emit a sound, and they’ve been amazed for several years. (Raises voice) Now, dear friends, when you have a church here that was formed the first of October, 1973 — this church was formed here — we started without a dime to pay for it, but today, it’s paid for.
Applause.
Jones: And a beautiful facility down here, facilities where people can stay, facilities up to here, and the kitchen has been put in. Modern kitchen, ‘cause these idiots in church before, they weren’t even practical enough— all these other churches aren’t even practical enough to at least eat together. We have a free dinner after each meeting. And anyway, in one year, a little over, we have paid for a church that they’re now offering us $200,000 for. We paid, I paid $129,000, they wanted two hundred and some thousand for it, and we are honored by— The mayor sent us a certificate, that this is one of the historic buildings of Los Angeles. And if riots and way— race wars and concentration camps do not come by 1980, this will be a relic that will be worth at least a million dollars, they say. Because this is an unusual fi— building. People come from everywhere to take pictures of it.
Scattered applause.
Jones: It’s so important to the city that they in— in— enter— entered into a contract that by that time that they will assist you in purchasing— and if a foundation to be purchased— and we have to have approval of any changes we make here, because this is one of the historic buildings in the entire area of Los Angeles. Well, anyway, in Redwood Valley, you can find Knob Hill Rest Home, Convalescent Home in Ukiah — brick, modern, beautiful, renovated in the last month since we took it over from that heathen, that heathen that was named Phillips, and took it over from her, and cleaned it up and painted it, now it’s a beautiful place, getting it on the road to be— being a place that’s attractive for all. These people that own these rest homes in the world are degenerates, many of them. They treat people, old people, like they were a piece of wood. Now we have that home, and it’s paid for. And we have one right across the— the street from the church, and we’re paying for that. We have thirty something thousand dollars in it, the rest home, the Sweeney home just across the street. And then right next to the church in Redwood Valley, the community center where our swimming pool is, where we can give physical therapy, many have been healed, helped, brought back to health in the warm waters of that pool. And the children enjoy it for pleasure. Right next is a lovely rest home, and right next to that is a beautiful children’s home, then a mile away is a 40-acre children’s home, and then a mile the other direction is a lovely convalescent center surrounded with 25 acres. We’re paying for some of those, of course. But we paid this church off. The San Francisco Temple is paid off, and it will be rebuilt in a beautiful style two months — Dr. Pilgrem (name unintelligible) told me yesterday that I healed of that tumor mass when he was to go to surgery, whi— that white pastor of the Church of God, he went to surgery, the doctors said it’s all gone. Dr. Curtis said I don’t know what goes with you people, but he said, I ought to know. Whenever I see somebody from Jones’ group, to expect this sort of thing, because it’s happened to me time after time, they’ll come to be operated, and they won’t need an operation after they come and see me. (Voice rising) He said, it was there when I saw you, before Jones worked on you.
Applause.
Jones: He told me Friday night that we will have our Temple definitely built in two months if all of you will volunteer time, if there’s any here in Los Angeles that can go up, the roof’s (unintelligible) enough that we can give you some living accommodations, I wish some of you would take some of your spare time and go up there and help us build it back, because we’ll need it built in the Mexican design that we have, (sumbles) it’s an old style architecture, so that we can sell it when that day comes, if we need to, and in fact, make it beautiful while we use it. Anyone here that will up there, by the way, and give us some spare time. I mean not from— I mean from Los Angeles. (Raps softly on podium.) Thank you, we’d appreciate it very much, we’d appreciate— Give your names to Brother Cleve here at the end, Cleve Jackson, C.J., he will take your names, and we could use it, because they’re doing wonderful work. (Voice rises) That church is paid for. The Redwood Valley Temple is paid for. The parsonage is paid for. Several acres of fruit trees and vines, most luscious grapes, paid for. Thirteen Greyhound buses, air-conditioned and heated — I don’t own a car — but they’re paid for. And some of you Baptists and holiness and Church of God and Christ people, you’re here today and you’ve been in the same church, and all you’ve paid for is preachers’ anniversaries, preachers’ birthdays, pastors’ wives teas. (Shouts) You know that’s all you pay for.
Applause.
Jones: Chilly. These clothes — These clothes have got spots on them, these clothes have got— These— (long pause, unintelligible sentence.) These clothes have spots on them, you can see them anywhere. See ‘em? Spots, spots, caked stuff? Now Sister Wilson over there will clean them free. She cleans them free. But you know, every time you clean clothes, you wear them out, don’t you, a little bit more.
Laughter.
Jones: So she hadn’t seen these pants in five weeks, this pair. And it smells like— little bit of any good free chosen nigger smells.
Laughter and applause.
Jones: Used tie, thrift shops, here we buy nothing but what will help the people. I’ve adopted eight children. We’ve taken those children in that children’s home that were beat with (pauses and shouts) tire rods, beat with leather whips and chairs, and now they’re out, flowered out under the beautiful leadership of the Jewish couple that are in our church that have been healed and brought to light, not one of the them is ever touched, and they work in the fields when they used to be beat by a Christian that run the place. These Christians have beat us long enough. And you still, some of you, you stay under the dead letter, and that black book is your enemy. You say, well, what am I to believe? Then listen to me. Said God would always speak. God would always be with us. He said, Lo, I am with you always. He didn’t say, it. He didn’t say, it, the Holy Spirit, or the thing. He said, I! He said, I am with you always, even unto the very end of the world. He said I will never leave you. I will never forsake you.
Applause.
Jones: In Azusa Street, when the spirit of Pentecost socialism fell, and they got that touch — they (unintelligible) word only had the tongue, they didn’t go ahead and get the shoe — when the spirit of Azusa came and Pentecostalism started, it was meant to start right, but it only got the tongue. And you’d know how stupid a person would look, if they only had a tongue taped on their foot, and they didn’t have any shoe, or didn’t have any instep, didn’t have any sole, didn’t have any heel, they’d look like a blind idiot. And that’s the way these tongues people today, all they’ve got’s the tongue, they say, I’ve got it all. Now what he said when the spirit of truth is come, it will lead you and guide you into all truth.
Applause.
Jones: (Shouts his message) You cannot be saved by Bibles. Bibles will destroy you. Jesus said, search the scriptures. Search the Bible. Search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life? But these are they that testify of the living Christ. That’s what it says in the Hebrew, that I am the living spirit. They testify the living Christ, and you will never recognize him when he comes. You will not come to him, that you might have life. The Scriptures are death, but the Spirit of Christ, hey hey, it’s alive (2 Corinthians 3:1-6).
Applause.
Jones: So you say, what would I do without my black book? What are you going to do with it?
Applause.
Jones: (In full throat) You’re going to die in the wilderness with it. [You] say, it’s the whole word of God. You are a liar! Jesus said himself, in the last chapter of John, if all the books, if all the sayings and works of Jesus had been recorded, the world — if it was a library — if all the world was a library, from the blue sky to the blue Pacific to the blue Atlantic, from China to Russia to America, he said if all the world was a library, the world would not be able to contain the writings, the world would not be able to contain the sayings, the world would not be able to contain the works and the Bibles of Jesus Christ (John 21:25, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.”).
Applause.
Jones: You have been led by preachers that are empty cisterns. They tell you to believe in the book because they don’t have any power. I have nine gifts. I’ve healed every disease. I raised the dead 518 times this year before your eyes. I mean, before your eyes, how many have seen me raise them, when they were stiff as a poker? Bowel movement, blood coming out of their face, blood coming out of their mouth, vomit all over them, eyes set, no pulse, no heartbeat, dead for two hours, three hours like this sister, 20, 30 minutes like this sister, this sister had her back and neck broken, took it and healed it. This sister next to her, five times operated when she was in holiness, no one could heal her, when she was in the church of God and Christ, no one could heal her, five times operated for cancer, the doctors sewed her up to die, but I, I said one day a year ago, your time has come, and she spit up the cancer.
Applause
Jones: Her stomach had been cut away. Her bowels had been cut away, five times. Radium treatment, chemotherapy, surgery, the doctors said, I’m sorry, I’m sewing you up to send you home to do what you must, because you must die, but when I got through with her, when the Living Word got through with her, when the Spirit got through with her—
Applause
Jones: — she went back to the doctor over a year, nearly a year ago, and the doctor said, I don’t know what’s happened, but I know that whereas you were dying, now you don’t need me anymore. You’re healed!
Applause
Jones: (Voice drops back to conversation level) I’ve got one young man back there that’s worrying about the Antichrist healing. The Antichrist does not heal. (Pause). You’ve been lied to again by preachers that want to keep you in bondage. They have no power, so they say (stage whisper), watch, don’t go over there. (conversation level) The devil can heal. They accused Jesus of that, and we’re living in a greater day than Jesus, because Jesus said, these things shall you do and greater, greater, because I have come and gone to the Father. So it’s a greater day than Jesus— but they accused him of being the Antichrist, they accused him of being, not only a devil, but they accused him of being the Prince of All Devils. They said, this is Beelzebub, and he cast out devils by devils, but he said, nobody can heal with the devil. No one can cast out a devil by a devil. He said, if it’s true, if someone gets healed by the devil, a house is divided against itself.
Applause.
Jones: (Voice rises) That’s just a lie that a lazy jack-legged, or a honky has told you, to keep you from the fount of Ever Blessing, to keep you from the law of life that’s in the Christ, the revolution in this room. That’s wha— just a lie that they have set up to keep you from having freedom. Now hear me, because I know the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. (Pause) You say, that it’s possible that the devil could heal. You don’t even know you’re reading. (Tape interrupts, sounds like edit) look like. An angel light. That’s what most of these holiness churches are. They look holy, but watch them chasing around, everybody’s wife-stealing and robbing the people. They look good in the pulpit, but they’re an angel of darkness, though they appear as an angel of light. But no one can heal the sick and raise the dead, and resurrect the people, and give them freedom, and set them free from the jails and the courts and taken every one of the poor children and all of their needy seniors and give them home and guarantee as I do that not one of my people will ever be hungry or homeless. (Lower voice). No one can do that but God Good.
Applause and cheers.
(Tape cut off)
Jones: —you’ve been lied to. They will not tell you the fact about the Bible. The Bible is a dangerous— it’s dangerous as arsenic, unless you have a preacher that’s sent. [It] didn’t say, how can you hear without a Bible, it said, how can you hear without a preacher? And how can he preach, lest he be sent? It means, endowed. It means, that he has the power, the love, the nine gifts that you call them, wisdom, discernment, healings, miracles, prophecies, all those powers. And it means, most of all, that he’s love.
Murmurs of assent.
Jones: Now, how can you hear without a preacher — not a Bible — how can he preach, lest he be sent? Because faith doesn’t come by reading. Faith comes by hearing. I’ve got about 50 new people here today, and you wanted a chance when you were new, didn’t you?
Murmurs of assent.
Jones: Didn’t you want a chance? How many are so glad you got saved from that slophouse religion?
Applause and cheers.
Jones: All right. If my voice can take it, then your posterior can take it, yes sir. (garbled tape for a couple of words.)
Pause.
Jones: Faith does not come by Bible-reading. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”). Hebrews 4:12 tells you exactly what the Word of God will do. It tells you exactly— give me a letter-killer somewhere here, I have it, I think. The letter — don’t forget that too, that’ll be your key to freedom — the letter-killer. The Bible murders, but the Spirit giveth life. Now the Word— What is the Word? The Word of God is clearly described as something alive, for the Word of God is quick, Hebrews 4:12 says (Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”). There’s something around here that’s pretty quick, raise everyone that’s ever been dead, or they’ve been electrocuted, or they’ve fallen from great buildings, they’ve been crushed by cars, or a bus fell on them like Brother Charlie Touchette. Now buses have traveled millions of miles, and even the police of chief is an atheist, said I know that God has to be with you. Some power from outer space or something has to be with you. He said, you are not an ordinary man, because, he said, buses cannot travel all these miles through snow, sleet (tape garbled) all these years, not one person ever being killed in— on the roads, in the thousands of miles we travel, every day, every week, I travel 1400 miles, many of us, every week we travel 1400 miles to get here, and I’m here every week, and it was 2800 miles here this last week, ‘cause I came here twice. Now think of it. The Word is quick. It’s powerful. It’s sharp. Sharper than a two-edged sword. It’s a discerner of the thoughts. Yesterday, you saw someone that was crippled, healed. I discerned her thoughts. Holiness, Pentecostal holiness sister back there, she was crippled and she was healed, I discerned her thoughts. Yesterday, a sister whose hand over here wouldn’t close, was numb due to being severed, it’s all right today, isn’t it? The eye was blind, and it was healed yesterday. Discerner of the thoughts, it’s sharper than a two-edged sword. It knows the (tape garbled) I told her things about her life that she told no one. I do it, and I’ve done it every day, every meeting I tell you, I fulfill the Word of God, because the Word of God’s not dead, the Word of God’s not a black book written by King James, the First Ship Jesus. He was the first one to send the Ship Jesus to Africa. (tape paused for unknown time). I hope that you’ll wake up before it’s too late. Said the Bible was good enough for me, ‘cause it was good enough for Grandma. Grandma also was in chains. (Pause). How’d they get the first black person that came from those slave boats, the Good Ship Jesus, how did they get them quiet? They put them in church. Where’d they put them? In the balcony. Chained them. History shows us that hundreds and hundreds of our black brothers, uncles, aunties, grandmothers, our forefathers, fell to their death chained to a balcony, or the church would cat on— catch on fire and the whites would never free them. (Shouts) How did they get our proud field niggers to listen and to quit fighting them? (Dramatic whisper) Set them down with the Bible, without a preacher, without a prophet. Without a prophet, you cannot be saved. With the Word that’s sharper than a two-edged sword. I did not finish. It says it will separate soul from spirit, it can reunite soul from spirit. You saw three class racial prejudiced enemies that stood up against me in this room drop dead. I just lifted my finger one (unintelligible word) on this pulpit, and I said, Don’t come, and they stepped on this pulpit, and they dropped as dead as a doornail.
Murmurs of assent.
Jones: That’s what I am. The Word. The Spoken Word. The Living Word.
Murmurs of assent.
Jones: [You] say, you blasphemer. I am doing what Jesus got nailed to the cross for doing. When they came for Jesus, they said, What good work? Jesus said— He didn’t do like I do, and tell you what you’re up to. I’ve told you every time we had a crisis, every time I was going to jail, when I went to free these people that were beat up by the (pause, laughs) you know. When the sister that was raised from the dead was kicked by an ambulance city official, called her nigger bitch, I raised her from the dead and healed her from total paralysis from a stroke. I told you, didn’t I, setting right here, I said, don’t go in the street, ‘cause they’re getting ready to set us up, there’ll be trouble in the streets, but people didn’t listen, so they went in the streets and they got arrested. First time in their life— They took this brother, beat him up like a dog, government official, Brother Brown, heads of the youth commission of human rights in the city— for the city of San Francisco, jailed him, beat him, beat my adopted children, beat women, didn’t care who they beat. (Pause) That’s what they’ve got now, you see— reading in the papers about the death squad. Read it just yesterday about the death squad, it’s all working in Mexico, it’s been working in New York, not the superiors, not the off— the chiefs, but the underdogs, these cheap little rookies, redneck dummies, have gone together and taken the law in their own hands, and they’re killing blacks in the night, or killing people they want to kill with impunity, so much so, I had it proven to me. I cannot tell you, but I had it proven to me by a high law enforcement official, he said we can’t even control our own departments. We’re afraid, he said, there are chiefs of police that are afraid to speak up today, because they’re afraid they’ll find themselves dead and it’ll look like an accident, it’ll look like it was a heart attack, but someone will have given just a little shot that doesn’t even make a mark. (Pause. Short laugh.) But Jesus didn’t know what was coming. I knew what was coming, and I went— When I left here and this audience was filled, I said they’ll put me in jail. (Voice rises throughout) I may be put in jail, but I will come back, and I will bring my people and I will set them at liberty who have been bruised by the racists, they will all be free, didn’t I say it?
Applause and cheers.
Jones: And I kept my word. When they come for Jesus, he said, for what good work do you come? Why do you stone me, because that was a lesser day, this is a greater day. He said, for what good work do you stone me? Your Bible— I’m reading from your Bible, though I don’t have to read it, because I know it. I know its truth, I know its lies. He said, the man that came, we come for you for no good work, we don’t stone you for any good work, but because you being a man, (taps on pulpit) make yourself God. You’ve got the nerve, being a man of Nazarene, born out of wedlock, not of Abraham’s seed. You make yourself God. He said, it is written — and no church will preach you this, because if they did, you would not be giving the preacher anniversaries, because I won’t take them. I won’t even let people give me Christmas gifts or birthday gifts. We believe that all are equal in the house of God. But in those churches, they get all this riches bestowed upon them, because they got a black book, and they say, you gotta listen to me, because I know the Bible. I graduated from a cemetery. (Pause) From a seminary, and it’s a cemetery, that’s where most of these people graduated from. Schools of death. These theological centers are schools of death. So they say, you gotta listen to me, give me your anniversary gifts, give me the Cadillac — I don’t own a car, but as I said, you’ve got 13 buses. Now you be patient. If we can get 25 people today and I want — (tape fades for two seconds) — because I have spoken enough that would save the world, just today.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: (Shouts) Anyway. (Pause) Now, are you awake? (Laughs) (Pause) How many are happy that they’re here today?
A few claps.
Jones: Very well. Shift yourself again.
An indecipherable shout from crowd. Applause and cheers.
Jones: That’s literally what happened to him. His heart was being destroyed, and he called on my name just a few days ago, and it was saved. The hospital was amazed, it happened right before their eyes on the cardiogram.
Murmur near microphone. Applause and cheers.
Jones: Now what was I saying? (Pause.) Hmm?
Someone whispers about cardiogram.
Jones: No. No, before his cardiogram.
Voice: How many of us are happy to be here today?
Jones: No, before that.
Indecipherable voice.
Jones: Shh. Hmm?
End of side 1.
Side 2:
Jones: Some are listening. They won’t tell you the truth, because the black book is the easiest gravy train that they’ve ever been on. Yet Allen [A.A. Allen, Pentecostal evangelist] came to me, Oral Roberts [Pentecostal evangelist] spoke this, Billy Graham came right to us – Ijames [Archie Ijames], Jack [Jack Arnold Beam], and me – in Claypool Hotel, said I don’t believe a thing in that Bible hardly. But he said, it’s the way to make a living. Billy Graham, who I prophesied his death, Billy Branham rather, said his head would be— I said he’d lose his head. His head was cut off in Texas. [Editorial note: The reference is to William Branham, an evangelical preacher and acquaintance of Jim Jones during the Temple’s Indianapolis days. Branham died in an automobile accident on Christmas Eve 1965 in Texas, but was not decapitated.] He said you can’t preach the truth about that Bible, he said (tape cuts out about three seconds) preach reincarnation, you cannot preach the truth about the Bible, you will be in trouble. I said, I choose to treat th— preach the truth. He said, well, I’ll be around, while you will be in trouble. Well, I’m still here, and his head is cut off from his body.
Applause.
Jones: No, we’re not happy about that, but I’m just saying, there is no thing on earth to gain by holding back the truth. There’s nothing that frees you so wonderfully as speaking the truth. (Ministerial cadence) Now, though no one believes that Bible — you don’t believe that Bible, your Pentecostal preacher doesn’t believe the Bible — if he did, they would do what they did when they got the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, when they got the spirit of truth, when they got freedom, on the day of Pentecost, they sold their possessions. You don’t get any of them selling anything, it all comes one way. They take from you, anniversaries, we don’t have pastors’ wives teas here or birthdays, we don’t have any of that junk. I live with used furniture, I’ve got an orange crate for a lamp stand, I’ve adopted eight babies of all races, but these preachers will take from you, and if you’d stop giving them your tithes tomorrow, they’d go get drunk, and they’d quit preaching right tomorrow.
Applause and cheers. Unintelligible comment from front row.
Jones: That’s what I was saying. I’ve got a little— My coffee stand, a little table, writing table in my living room is a table that I— that was used by his children in their home when they were children.
Man in front row: (Unintelligible) — when Jack [Jack Arnold Beam] and Joyce [Joyce Parks, nee Joyce Beam] were babies.
Jones: When they were babies. And it doesn’t even stay on its legs, it’ll fall off.
Laughter.
Jones: So you have to push it back every now and then, ‘cause it’s just laying there on the legs. But somehow— people say, you need to get a new one. I said, (stretches words) just be patient. Because this man is taking care of his children. And every time, since that big old heavy thing would fall, but it’s never fallen yet. But it— (tape cuts like an edit). Secondly, they wanted to wire our house this year, that used to be mine until I turned it over to the church. And I said, Brother Pierpoint, who I healed of that massive growth of tumor in his bowels — the doctor couldn’t find it after he said it was there, x-ray said it was there — he said, you must get it wired, and Archie said, you must get it wired, it’s going to burn down. It said, no it won’t. ‘Cause I said we’re not going to spend our $4000 to rewire this house, ‘cause trouble’s coming to this land. I said, I’ll keep this house safe this year. He said, it’ll burn down. It hasn’t burned down yet, and it isn’t going to burn down by no faulty wiring.
Applause.
Jones: They said, you need air-conditioning, I said, no, I don’t. You need a furnace. We don’t have a furnace. I said, no, I don’t. Because we’ve got to get ourselves ready for a great day. We’ve got no time. He said I run ‘em out. I did. They came to do it, and I run them out. Because I wasn’t spending no $4000 of the people’s money, my money or people’s money or anybody’s money, ‘cause I know what’s ahead, and you better get somebody that knows what’s ahead. Jesus didn’t know everything. He said, what do you come for? Why have you forsaken me? He said so many things that showed that he still had questions. I’ve got no questions. (Voice rises during next minute) Jesus said to you, what I’m doing today, he said it is written, ye all are gods. We don’t worship anything in the sky. We know that heaven is within us. We have had heard his prayer, the kingdom come on earth. We’ve heard the lord’s Prayer. We’ve heard the pastor’s prayer. (Pause, voice drops.) And we’re living the pastor’s prayer. I hope you’re following me today, some of you new people. It’s hard to follow me. But I hope you’ll take this book and read it. In closing, this book will open your eyes. It’ll prove to you that there are lies in the Bible, that you need a prophet to guide you. How could there help but be a liar? Would you believe something that uh, [Adolf] Hitler wrote?
A few scattered voices: No.
Jones: Would some of you believe what [Richard] Nixon wrote?
More: No.
Jones: Well, King James was a murderer of Christians. He held slaves and sent the first Ship Jesus to get the first slaves. He was a drunk, an alcoholic, and he (stumbles for words) was a sexual deviant, a sexual deviant of the worst type. Now how can an evil man write a good book? (Pause) I often wonder why people couldn’t see that. How can an evil man write a good book? How many of you will say to me, that the Catholic Church is in error? (Pause) Sure you do that. All Protestants, all Pentecostals say they’ve got the full Gospel, don’t sit there and lie to me, you’ve all heard them preach against the Catholic Church, haven’t you?
Murmurs of assent.
Jones: Where did you get your Bible? From the Catholic Church. (Pause) Latin Vulgate edition, the first one was written 404 years, A.D., 404 years after Jesus had died. Why how man— humans can’t even tell the truth 404 seconds after somebody died.
Murmurs, applause.
Jones: (Voice rises throughout) You go back and trace the Bible, you’ll see for yourself, I’m telling you the truth, and I’ll close with this. The most— I’ve got a whole book full of the mistakes. First part is the truths, the last part is thousands of errors, it’ll show how one chapter will say one thing, and it’ll turn right around and say another thing. That’s why you have to have a preacher, and if you don’t have a preacher that is sent, you cannot hear. You are saved by the foolishness of preaching, not by Bible readers, not by scholars, not by Baptist training (unintelligible word), not by Bible-teaching courses, you are saved, just like that sister yesterday — her bones were made brittle with cancer, and I see her here, and I saved her, and I saved a young one, and here she’s standing today, she’ll run around this Temple, her bo— her bones were eaten up with cancer, and a little child that was do— dying, now here today. (Unintelligible sentence— sounds like “Brought up his picture, because I made him everly whole.”). You need to get somebody that’s got the goods, but all you’ve got is phony loudmouths, balloon cisterns filled with hot air, all they got’s a black book, they don’t even believe what they preach. They tell you Jesus is coming soon, but if they don’t have a new Cadillac every year, they quit your church.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: We know he’s here. We know he’s not gone anywhere. He said, Lo, I am with you always. (Voice drops.) We know that always someone will speak for God. Someone will set themselves in the Messiah’s chair, and declare the unsearchable riches. Jesus had died just a little while, Mary and Martha was coming back from the tomb and they were heavy-hearted, low in spirit. They walked by the wayside, and a man came up to them. He said, be of good cheer. He consoled them, but they didn’t pay much attention to him. They said he was the gardener. But the— own Bible — King James didn’t get out all the lies — your own Bible said, it wasn’t the gardener, (Awestruck) it was Jesus, it was God, in another body, talking to them. Now you say, it was Jesus? Mary and Martha had been with Jesus for three years, (Pause) almost three constant years, they cooked for him, washed his feet, which we wouldn’t do now because this is a higher day, no— no— no person in the Christ the hundredfold today — a hundredfold, you know, that means full God. Full God. You can be fully God. Jesus said you could. He said, Ye all are gods. I have manifested full godship. Purity of heart, mind and soul. He said some seed will fall in thirty. Some seed will fall and produce sixtyfold. Some seed will fall and produce one hundredfold, where the mind of Christ will be in you. The same mind that was in Christ will be in somebody in every day. Now if you don’t know where it is, I won’t tell you. But if you will get a revelation (laughs), if you will let the Spirit speak, (voice rises to crescendo) before you leave this room today, you’ll know, you’ll know where he is.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: Now think of this: If God was going to come back in the same body as he did in Jesus, Mary and Martha would have known him. But they didn’t recognize him. He had no doubt different hair color. He may have looked a little different in his eyes. He had different color of skin, perhaps, ‘cause they thought he was a gardener. That’s the way with a lot of church people today. They say, Jesus is coming soon. They’re looking for a Goldilocked Jesus. And the first place — that’s another lie of King James — Jesus was not white.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: (Voice rises throughout) But they’re looking for somebody with long hair, and they say, oh, he’s coming soon, I’ll know him when he comes, I’ll see him. But it was just like Mary and Martha. They were walking with him, and they know not that it was the same Jesus, the very same God.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: (Normal voice) Because God is a state of evolution. God is a state of consciousness. Somebody else had taken on the mantle, Jesus was in the tomb, but somebody else (dramatic whisper) stepped in to the Messiah’s energy and was walking talking God, and they didn’t know it, because they were looking for a white — or a brown, as he was then — looking for a Jesus (stretches out words dramatically) that looked exactly like the Jesus that they had known. But he never appears. God, I said, God. As you call it God, I pro— prefer liberator, savior, Emmanuel, the Savior, he never appears the same way twice.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: Paul said, Paul said, in King James, he showed you the mystery. Paul said, I come to you what? — in the person. Of who? Christ. He didn’t say the name of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:10, “To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ;”). Moses was what? Said Christ overshadowed him. Didn’t it say? He was the God of his day, leading his people through the wilderness. It was a lesser degree than Jesus, because like everything, things go more and more to the perfect day. We die daily. God in 1973 will be manifested in a higher degree than he was in 1920. You understand. Or in 1900. Surely, because Jesus said, these things shall you do and greater. Now I don’t often take so long in teachings, but we have plenty of miracles yesterday to astound everyone, every person here, hundreds of hands lifted up, said I’m sick, I’m crippled, I’m in pain, but before I got through, I even healed a woman here that had fallen down the stairs, to the last one, I took away every pain in this room.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: And she fell down the stairs, and she said she still feels good, wonderful today. That’s what she said to him, I gather. Now, my friend (taps podium), someplace along the road, you better get the truth. I heard someone come up here the other day and say, Thank, Jim— I thank God for Jim.
Applause and cheers. (Someone calls out, “I thank Jim for God.”) Applause and cheers.
Jones: (In high voice) You better get the horse where it belongs, in the cart where it belongs. You didn’t know anything about a Savior until I came. Some of you were living in poverty, you were in jails, you were in prisons, you were homeless, you were down with the boot of the oppressor on your neck. You better thank Jim for the Savior.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: Peace. Shift yourself again, just now. Couple of lights, (unintelligible word) two back lights to save our lights to get us ready for the Promised Land. ‘Cause we save here. Where else can you see a father that will go every day into the courts and free his people, have people standing in the gap of the hedge, like the young man that went away, John Haynes, went away, only came back when he was in trouble. People ready to go, and I came out, hadn’t had any sleep. I rushed out, stopped them, I said, you don’t have information to know what you’re doing. And when they listened to me, they went, and five years was wiped away. Five-year sentence that he was doomed to get was wiped away. You better be ready to listen tomorrow, if you get in there to help him again, ‘cause he had several charges against him, but five years, wiped away, the judge said, just because, just because I — my people — had followed my advice and offered their assistance and done what I said, just because they followed instructions, that’s why the man got five years removed, a sentence that was doomed to get. Dana(?)’s facing 15 years. Anita, get the testimony, all of you should get that testimony that Deanna Mertle has written so beautifully. You should pass that out of Anita. You ought to get those— It’s a— It would touch anyone’s heart, how the police department in this very town, I called, she came here confessing to a crime, it would put her away for years. I said, turn yourself in. And I said, she’ll be back, and she was back in an hour. The police loosed her, the chiefs, the upper division, ‘cause there’re some good people here in this police department. There’re some mean devils on the low level, but there’re some good ones here. That’s why the lower ones are trying always to trap us, and have smeared us and have tried to put false charges against everyone here, but we come through thus far, and if you’ll stick together, if you will always stick together, nothing can come nigh our dwelling.
Applause and cheers.
Jones: Certainly they’ll talk against us. Certainly they’ll ridicule us in newspapers. Certainly they will even try to kill us, thinking they do God a service. That means, the worst enemies of the people that bear truth in the last days, will be the church, (Voice slows) because it’s said they will kill you, thinking they do God a service. Bible people are dangerous. They hate— If you don’t get baptized their way, they’re ready to send you to hell. We had a sister sitting down on the front rows one night, she came on one Saturday service, she set down there and she got up and said, he’s preaching against the Bible, and it’s wrong. And I said, sister, show me where it’s wrong. She couldn’t, because as I started to say, this book will show you, even King James cannot tell you the facts about Jesus’ birth. Matthew, the first chapter, sixteenth verse, Matthew says Jesus’ father was Joseph. And he says his grandfather was Jacob. And he said his great-grandfather was Matthan, M-A-T-T-H-A-N. Right? Luke 3:23, says exactly the same story, I mean telling about the birth of Jesus. But King James makes a mistake. Here he says Jesus’ father was indeed Joseph, but he says his grandfather was not Jacob, but Heli. And his great-grandfather was not Matthan, M-A-T-T-H-A-N, but it’s misspelled. Luke says it’s M-A-T-T-H-A-T, Matthat (Matthew 1:15-16 “…Matthan begat Jacob; And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ”; Luke 3:23-24, “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which wasthe son of Heli, Which was the son of Matthat.”). And you trace it on back to Abraham, both of them trace it back to Abraham, but Matthew has 27 grandparents, and Luke has 42 generations. (Pause) I could show you one thing after another, all through the Bible, surely you’ve read the Bible and saw where it didn’t make me— any sense. How many know that, and read it, saw things you didn’t understand.
Murmurs.
Jones: Saw direct contradictions. Sure you have. Like Jesus was first nailed on the cross, all the thieves rebuked him. Another writer says only one of the thieves. The other thief rebuked the other thief, and Jesus said, this day, thou shall be with me in Paradise (Matthew 27:38-44; Luke 23:39-43). One place after Jesus was baptized, had to be made perfect through his infilling of the Holy Spirit of Truth, said he went immediately to the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and was tempted of the devil. That’s what one Bible says. Another Bible chapter says that three days after Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan, and the dove settled on him, that he was in Cana of Galilee, which is 80 miles from the wilderness, three days after he was baptized, turning water into wine (Matthew 4:1-2, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-2; contrasted with John 1:32, 2:1, 2:9). How can you be 40 days in the wilderness, and be three days after your baptism, the third day of the 40 days, he was over at Cana. But one Bible writer says he never left the wilderness, the mound of temptation, for 40 days and 40 nights. (Pause. Voice drops) If you don’t get this truth, the white man’s going to lead you into hell.
Applause.
Jones: I wish I did not have to tear down your paper idol, because all idols have to go. I wish I did not have to do it, but you will never open your mind to truth, until you get rid of the paper idol, until you allow someone that is sent with love and power and has proved himself with the fruits and the gifts of the Holy Spirit of Truth to lead you until you come into your own Christ consciousness, ‘cause that’s what we want to work towards, where all shall be one, all shall know, from the least to the greatest, the knowledge of the revolution of God, which God means, a revolution, God means, ultimate good, the highest good, the knowledge of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. But first you better follow someone. Can you raise the dead? Can you heal a blind woman like I healed four weeks ago, or six weeks ago now? Can you do that? Can you cause someone to spit up cancer yesterday, or the cripple to walk, or the woman to close her hand and life to come back into it, when it was severed, cut clear off? Can you do this? Can you cause blind to see, or the woman yesterday that was— her kidneys were completely destroyed, can you see— you saw the terrible growth that came out, and her kidneys came back to normal immediately, can you do that? Can you cause the prison doors to open like I’ve caused them to open time and again, or the dead to raise? Then, until you can, follow me, because I have come in the person — not the name, but (in full throat) I have come like Paul said, I have come in the very person, I have come in the very nature, I have come in the person of Christ the Revolution (2 Corinthians 2:10, “To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ.”). I thank you.
Applause.
Jones: Preachers will rob you because they don’t believe in what they preach themselves. They slip to me by night to get healed. Like Nicodemus, they’ll come into our beautiful court of Garden of Eden up there in Redwood Valley, they’ll slip in to get healed (John 7:48-52). Or they’ll call me on the phone, say don’t tell my church I called you. And they’ll preach that Jesus is coming soon? Well, if he’s coming soon, why do they have to have a new car every year? Why, as soon as one anniversary is finished, do they start planning for the next anniversary? If he’s coming so soon, why do they have to dress so nice? (Laughs dismissively) Ah, they don’t believe it. They’ve got a bunch of suckers.
Applause.
Jones: (Matter of fact) They could sue me. All these people could sue me, I told you the ministers’ names, one after another, that have told me they didn’t believe in the Bible. Reverend Nathan Ershawn(?), he told me he didn’t believe that the Bible was true. There were errors and lies in the Bible, the one that tried to kidnap that sister to get her into a mental hospital and take her property, and I caused him, by my revelation, to bring it right back and lay it to the altar with the police. Now he could sue me if that wasn’t true. Couldn’t he?
Murmurs of assent.
Jones: Why, of course he could. ‘Cause I be libeling him, I be slandering him. But I said the facts are spoken too stout to be denied. (Taps podium). These preachers have got the easiest gravy train going. That’s why there’re be lies told on me. (Voice rises throughout) That’s why people will fight me. Because I’ll set you free. I’ll make you a God. I’ll show you, you don’t need no jack-legged preacher, I’ll show you that you are sufficient unto yourself. I will start a revolution in you that will cause you to go to the ends of the world.
Cheers and applause.
Jones: (Voice rises throughout) Bless your heart, come and go with me, for in your father’s house, there are many realms, there are many levels, there are many mansions, ooooh, yes, there are. Come and go with me. I’ve got shelter for you in depression, food in our warehouses and our storehouses if depression comes, and there will be famine, where people will be in souplines 10 mile long. There’ll be so much chaos in this country, the money crash will come when your dollar won’t— a whole wheelbarrow full won’t be able to buy you a sack of groceries. And there’ll come a dictatorship in this land, because they’re trying to whip it up now, with the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Nazis and all this hate, and the kidnappings, (Voice lowers, but intensifies) they’re trying to get white people to kill blacks, so the rich will be able to have all they want. They don’t need workers anymore, so they want the poor worker destroyed. So come and go with me, because across the sea, just this week, we purchased a boat that will land to get our supplies, in just a few weeks, it will land. We bought a boat. We haven’t bought preachers cars, we’re not talking about new churches, or fine robes for the preachers, or fine homes for the preachers, or like that one that was in the newspaper this week, that had thirty-some thousand dollars of gold fixtures in his bathroom, no, we’ve got houses, we’ve got jobs, we’ve got 20,000 acres across the Atlantic Ocean, we’ve got (unintelligible word— plan? land?), we’ve got hope, we’ve got refuge in the time of storm. My—
Cheers and applause.
Jones: (Cries out) Hallelujah. Freedom. Love your neighbor again. (Pause) Hey!
(Long pause, low indecipherable voice talks to Jim.)
Jones: Peace, everyone. You may be seated. Study this sermon now. Study it over and over again. If I go away at anytime to prepare a place for you, for just a short time, if I go across this nation to reap the harvest, if I go across the nation to win those that are hungry— they write me every week from Chicago and Philadelphia, they— we— they took our vacation together, because I have no vacations unless I take them with you. Whatever I have, you have. And we went across the nation on our vacation, and we still get hundreds of people that write us every week from Chicago and Philadelphia and Houston, saying, oh how fortunate the Peoples Temple is, how fortunate California is, to be free, how fortunate they are to have the truth. So feast on this sermon. Make this the— (tape cuts off for few seconds). Let it be heard, because this has been the truth, the whole truth and (stretches out words for effect) nothing but the truth.
Applause.
Jones: (In full throat) Glory, glory, glory. And one you get it, once you get it, you’ll be thankful in your heart, you’ll be grateful because it’ll set you free, like you’ve never been free in your life. You’ll come out under the yoke of bondage and you won’t have to look down to no one, you’ll be able to look everyone straight in the eyes, because you have a city, oh yes you have, you have a promised land.
Applause.
Jones: (Voices rises throughout) God has come down out of the imaginary heavens and he has condescending to walk in his people, to talk with them, to be with them, to be their God, their redeemer, he has wiped away the tears from the eyes of those that know him. He has caused sorrow to cease. He has caused criticism to pass. He’s caused hope to spring forth as a wellspring eternal. He’s brought you forth. As you were dead, now you are alive. Hallelujah!
Applause.
Jones: (Conversational) Caution. Be sure. I’m dealing with a very physical condition there, (unintelligible phrase— sounds like “Brother Morris warned”), importance of staying in the atmosphere. Where are you going, when you need to be close to the body? Peace. (Pause). Very well, it’s all right, that’s— it’s very well, I see sir, I know, you have to get to job responsibility, but I want to say (warning tone) when you are leaving for a musical or an anniversary, or you’re leaving to get to some other jack-legged church after you’ve set in heavenly places today, you’ve set where the truth is preached as no where in America. Woe unto you, once having tasted of the heavenly gift, it’s impossible to go back and renew dead works under a penance (?) (repentance?).
Applause.
Jones: Is there one hungry heart here that would say, that there’s something you don’t understand? I appreciate— I saw the young man over there on my left that has come in with an entire different theology, but he’s opened his heart in one session, fine looking young man that’s opened his heart. I hope that others have opened your mind. Came with the Bible in the hand, but now has got the Scripture in the heart.
Applause.
Jones: If there’s one last question on this truth that you do not understand— I don’t want a question about healing, because all you have to do is to think, just call, I did not touch any of those that were lifting their hands yesterday, except the one sister. Hundreds of people that lifted their hands in pain and crippling conditions, I did not touch them. I just sent my word, and everyone in the room was healed. That’s all it takes. If you know—
End of side two.
Tape originally posted January 1999