From: Foundation Church of the New Birth http://www.divinelove.org Yes, I am here in response to your request that I write you a sermon for those people who may be interested in learning more about the Gospel which I really preached when on earth -- a Gospel designed to show man the Way to Immortality through possession of the Father's Love through prayer and the resultant transformation of man's soul from a human soul to one possessed of the essence of God and hence Divine. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86725&view=post&blogid=7331 Fri, 26 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86724&view=post&blogid=7331 Fri, 26 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86723&view=post&blogid=7331 Fri, 26 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 In this sermon I wish to speak to you about David's attitude towards Temple sacrifices. There are many expressions in the Psalms indicating that David did not look with favor on them, and there are just as many statements to the contrary: that David whole-heartedly supported the Temple sacrifices. Many writers there are, and have been, who believe David never wrote verses either for or against them, and that their presence proves that David never wrote these Psalms, or any other. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86749&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I wish now to discuss Psalm 18, which also appears in Second Samuel Chapter 22, under the title "David's song of deliverance." The writer affirms that "the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul." http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86748&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 In my last sermon I have indicated briefly from some of the psalms how David really regretted that justice under his administration was something which had not been achieved with success because the efforts of establishing a strong kingdom had withdrawn his energies from the domestic issues. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86747&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I wish to continue with my sermons on the Psalms of David and those which were continued under his influence, to show how the Hebrews turned to God for trust, strength to overcome the threats and struggles of the earth life and for consolation in his hours of bereavement. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86746&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 In the last sermon I have been considering the Psalms of David from the point of view of an intimate approach of man to the Father, wherein God is essentially seen not as the early tribal and community deity in which the individual soul is submerged in the conception of a national God, but wherein the human being, in his own right as a living entity; turns to His Maker and seeks from Him that consolation, that love, that power to help him combat evil in his soul, and, through prayer and more elevated ethical conduct, shows his trust in the Father to strengthen him in his daily struggles in a grim existence, and delivers him from those enemies and hostile forces with which he needs must contend and overcome to survive. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86745&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 The psalms of David, and those written under his inspiration, are songs of many moods -- from joy and exultation, to sorrow, penitence and despair. These are songs of praise of God, hope and faith in His bounty and mercy, in the soul's knowledge that only faith in God can give man the inner strength to go on in the face of hostile events and circumstances, and count on ultimate deliverance. They are the knowledge which the soul has that God is man's rock of salvation, so that obedient to God's law to avoid sin, man's place with God will be secure, and further, that God will deliver man out of the evils of the material world because of such faith. These songs were prayers which the soul addressed to God in great supplication and petition growing out of the soul's desperate need for help and assurance. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86744&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 These sermons on the character of King David, which underline those episodes showing his essential goodness of heart in the difficult position of being leader of Israel's armies in the nation's wars against her hostile neighbors, have sought to explain why David was designated a man after God's own Heart. It was precisely for this goodness of heart, which he was able for the most part to maintain in the face of the brutal conditions which prevailed, that he was thus designated. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86743&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Another instance of David's forebearance is found in preventing Abishai, Joab's brother, from killing Shimei, a man of the house of Saul, when that individual cursed David as he came to the village of Bahurim. Shimei came out of his dwelling, cursing and picking up stones, cast them at the king and his servants. And thus said Shimei, 'Begone, thou man of blood, and base fellow; the Lord has visited upon thee all the blood shed by thee of the house of Saul in whose place thou has reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son, and behold, thou art taken in thy own mischief, because thou art a man of blood.' http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86742&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Yes, I am here once more to continue my story of David, the king, as a man whose innate impulses were good, in that, faith in God, kindness and generosity were in his heart.I have tried to show that David, in his conduct towards Saul, Jonathan and Abigail, Nabal's wife, revealed a heart in which forebearance and restraint were much in evidence. Through this goodness of action, David gained a respect and popularity which helped to give him the allegiance of hundreds and later thousands of men, all leading towards his accession to the throne of Judah, and ultimately, to kingship of the entire Hebrew nation. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86741&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 The sermons I am delivering to you about David the king are important in showing readers that warfare and swordsmanship are not everything that characterizes the greatest of the Hebrew kings, but that there was a facet to his behavior which reveals his human love, which is seen in his kindness, his sympathy and his forebearance. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86740&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 In countless stories and commentaries about David, his valor in battle, his power of leadership, his skill in extending boundaries of the Hebrew nation and inevitably his sins with Bath-Sheba and her husband Uriah are those themes which constantly come up, and they are, perhaps, warranted and justified in estimating the qualities of the man and judging his character, and I should also add, from the religious viewpoint, his unshakeable faith in the Father, and, of course, this is true, but I also want to tell you that David was also a man of personal warmth and that he showed kindness and sympathy not as a duty which he thought was due to God, but which came from his heart and which he felt as a human being. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86739&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I have been telling you about those narratives in the Old Testament wherein God is visualized as a God of Love, if not the Father of Divine Love, then the Jehovah whose love shines forth on that human level displayed by His children. In the previous sermons I have pointed out how love between brothers, for a father, between in-laws, reflects this love between man and his fellow man indicative of the human soul created in the image of the Father. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86738&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 In this sermon, I continue to show you how the Old Testament of the Hebrews developed stories in which some of the characters act towards their fellow men in a spirit of love attesting to that human love which was implanted in mankind by God and was the forerunner of that sublime love which the Father has available for whomsoever of His children seek it in earnest prayer, so that, abiding in their souls, it will provide the salvation which, as the Messiah of God, I brought with me when on earth. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86737&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I am here again tonight to continue with my series of sermons showing the development of the human love, and the way to the perfection of the human soul, in the Old Testament; and this as the prelude and necessary prerequisite to the bestowal upon mankind of the potentiality of receiving the Father's Love. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86736&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 In my ninth sermon, I wrote about the New Heart, and how it was that in the long intervals of time recorded in the Old Testament, men became aware that if man turned to God, He would help them become men after His own heart, which, to them, meant a soul free of evil, and embued with a sense of righteousness, justice and mercy towards one another. I showed how this took place in the time of the prophet Samuel with the anointing of Saul, and how in later times the prophets were convinced that, in the course of time, God would pour out His spirit upon His children and give them a New Heart, wherein the soul would be without evil and sin, and bright with the purity of justice, love and mercy. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86735&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Yes, I am here tonight to tell you about the New Heart, and what it really means to mankind. I want to tell you that it is the New Heart that made of me, and makes me now, the Messiah of God, and that it was the New Heart which was foretold in the Old Testament by those ancient writers who had the spiritual perception to learn what was to be the plan of the soul salvation for mankind, and recognized by the apostles and disciples who followed my teachings that the New Heart, and what it really was, constituted the fulfillment of God's promise of salvation, in the days when I was on earth and preached my mission of the Father's Love. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86734&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I am interested in this sermon to tell all my listeners and readers how and why the 53rd chapter in Isaiah, dealing with the suffering servant of God, neither refers to me primarily nor any bearing upon my mission as the Messiah of God, in that, possessed of a soul divine through the efficacy of the Father's Love, I preached the message that prayer to God for His Love would bring man into at-onement with the Father. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86733&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I am here tonight to tell you about that Christian rite called the mass, or transsubstantiation, and to give you further proof and additional reasons why this ceremony is neither God-given, as the church claims, nor was it ever, or could be, instituted by me. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86732&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Tonight I wish to write on why it is that no blood, be it of man or beast, has the efficacy of redeeming mankind of sin, as taught in some of the churches.This thought is at the apex of what is called the mass, as practiced in the Catholic church, and is the basis for what is known as the communion in other churches. This rite has no foundation in Judaism and it is written, falsely, that it was I who instituted the ceremony at the Last Supper, but the church likes to point to some unimportant incidents in the Old Scriptures as indicative of the future rite, which I shall explain as having no relationship to the mass and simply a severe distortion of the facts to accord with the church's views. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86731&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 It is so important for mankind to know in what ways Christianity as it is constituted today is not bringing the message of immortal life as I preached it when on earth that I must continue to dwell upon this subject in detail. Since Christians are being taught, and they believe, that they achieve salvation in special ways from faith in my name, and through so-called communion with me, they must be thoroughly disabused of this tragic fallacy, in order that they may be enabled to have an open mind and heart for the Father's Love. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86730&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I was glad to be able to write you showing that the Christian churches as they are constituted at present are preaching a religion no different in its vital foundation from the religion of Judaism from which they parted, in that they are teaching the moral and ethical principles of human conduct as the way to God; and indeed, as I have shown, these churches by so doing are perpetuating the Mosaic code that leads to obedience of God's laws and purification of the human soul, with a place in the spiritual heavens prepared for the human soul cleansed of sin. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86729&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I wish to go into further detail concerning the Message of the Father's Love, and its availability to all mankind through prayer to Him for its inflowing, and the reasons why the churches as they are constituted today do not possess the message of the "glad tidings of immortality," as I preached it when I made my appearance on earth as the Messiah of God. http://www.divinelove.org/apps/articles/?articleid=86727&view=post&blogid=7331 Tue, 23 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0400