"I have loved you, saith the LORD...." Malachi 1:2

"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten…." Revelation 3:19

"Ye shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess." Deuteronomy 5:33

"Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God." Deuteronomy 12:28

"Hearken unto Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by Me from the belly, which are carried from the womb: and even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you." Isaiah 46:3-4

Good morning, friends, and truly a good morning it can be to you!

In my last talk I commenced to deal with one of the basic factors as a requirement unto success and happiness. Today I want to pick up where I left off and endeavor to set the main picture before you. When once you can truly grasp this so fully that you know it is true (not merely believe, but actually know), to the extent that it gets woven into the fabric of your soul, then have you taken the first great hurdle unto a life transformed and filled with overflowing joy and a deep surging peace, the surface of which nothing can ruffle. It becomes a happiness so sweet and a calm so serene and a tranquility so deep, that only the words of the Lord Jesus on the tempestuous Sea of Galilee can describe it, as He arose and spoke to the raging elements, saying, "Peace, be still." And twelve men gave their witness that there was immediately a great calm (Mk. 4:39).

Last time I showed you that according to the Bible, and also according to our best scientists, anything and everything which has life, whether it be animate or inanimate, must bring forth after its own kind; this is that basic law which is manifest throughout all of Creation. And as I showed you, that selfsame law applies to the very Being of God. Thus we see that God's having created birds and fish and animals and even man, did not constitute Him a Father, for not until He (being a Spirit) had begotten another spirit, or spirits in His Own image and after His Own likeness, was He a Father. One of the multitudinous spirits which He has begotten indwells every human being. That is why we can rightfully call Him our Father. That indwelling spirit partakes of the very substance of God. It stands in relationship to God the Father precisely the same as an infant son or a young child stands in relationship to his father; or an infant girl or young daughter in relationship to her mother.

Although I will not now go into its detail, nor show the Scripture-backing for my statement, I do want to plant the seed of understanding with reference to this very matter by saying that the difference of intelligence between an infant son and his father, or between a teenage son and his father, is precisely the same as the difference in spiritual understanding we see manifest throughout the world today, namely, the difference in age. As the young son grows in age, so does he grow in understanding. As the spirit indwelling man takes on age, so does he grow in spiritual understanding. If you are a church member, then in all probability you have been taught that every person has a soul fresh from the hand of God at the moment of birth into this physical world. What poppycock! Spend the rest of your life searching, and you shall fail to find the faintest backing in Scripture for this man-invented yarn. Therefore, the reasons for some people having so little spiritual understanding, in contrast to such men as Moses and Solomon and John the Baptist, is purely one of the age of the indwelling spirit. Sometime in the future I trust to deal more fully with this very deep and important subject.

Now let us look upon nature. I grew up in the country, and therefore had a good chance to learn more about it than many who grow up in the cities. Birds of the air, whether little or big, will spend much of their time to gather worms, mice, or other forms of life to bring it to their young, that the young may grow and develop into the image and fullness of themselves. Ordinarily, such worms or food would be eaten by the parent-bird, but because they have young, they sacrifice this in order that their young may also have, because the young as at that stage are helpless. I have seen many birds and also animals willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to protect and preserve the helpless life of their young ones. And which parent is there among our own, who, if normal, will not for a period of 20 years or more, make life from morning to night a complete sacrifice, in order that the little ones shall have food and clothing and shelter; that they may gain an education, a training, and to find their proper place in our complex society; that they too may enter into the fullness of life as we know it, or as we believe it should be?

You who have enough intelligence and honesty to recognize that there is a God, Who is also the Father of the indwelling human spirit, dare you to say that God is not at least as good as animal life, which gives itself without hesitation unto the preservation of its own little ones? Dare you to say that God, the Father in Heaven, is not at least as good as the most bestial of men?

If you shudder at those questions, and the thoughts they imply; if you can see with me this great and basic truth, as I'm sure you can, then you realize the fact that God's Fatherhood implies and necessitates by very nature that in an absolute totality He perpetually must give Himself for the little ones He loves, even as a human parent without a moment's hesitation gives all that he or she has and is – for the good and the preservation of the little ones they have begotten. When this you have fully grasped against the backdrop that within you dwells a spirit, a deathless spirit, partaking of the substance of God, begotten by the Almighty God; and that therefore you are, spiritually speaking, a child of His, then you immediately come into the realization that the Omnipotent Creator of this very universe, with all power in His hands, as a Father – as a loving Father, as a self-sacrificing Father – stands behind you ready to give all that He has and all that He is for your good and for your preservation, now and eternally. When you come into the fullness of this realization, then peace begins to dawn within your soul; joy takes root, and a measure of happiness begins to fill. It marks the incipient turning point for you in a life gloriously transformed. Howbeit, because it is a spiritual matter, it may take considerable time until it matures into a glorious fullness.

I'm well aware how you can point to many "godly people" who live exemplary lives and yet have known little but an unending series of trouble and grief and tribulation. Because such cases abound and cannot be denied, there is a proneness for many to believe that trouble, grief and tribulation are the common lot of man. And religionists will point to Scripture to back this up, such as the words of the Lord to His Apostles when He said that they would be persecuted and for His Name's sake even be put to death (Lk. 21:12,16-17). But beloved, let me ask you this question, "Are you a Jew living under the Mosaic Law?" "Are you one of the Apostles sent out by the Christ to evangelize a heathen world?" To be sure, we can find Scripture-backing for any crazy idea, or for almost every untruth that was ever invented, if we wrench a word or a phrase or a clause or a sentence from out of its context, paying no attention to the relevant passages connected therewith. If that we do, then we fail to divide aright the Word of God (II Tim. 2:15).

Now let us come back to the Fatherhood of God, and to a life of trouble and grief which is so common to many people today. To understand this, we have only to look to a well-regulated home, and a large family where the parents are fully normal and have not been too brainwashed by so-called modern psychology. When we find such parents, we find a disciplined home; we find the children cannot do wrong without being corrected; we find that if they persist in wrong, they get disciplined, whether that be by one method or another. We find, as we look upon such children, that some of them are pouting, some of them may shed a tear or two, while again they may weep, they may cry, and once in a while we hear someone screaming; someone else in brooding anger, and maybe even hatred towards the parent developing within. Is it because the parents are bad, or that they do not care for the children? No. I said, "in a well-regulated home of normal parents."

Therefore, it is not because of disregard or hatred for the children, but because of their great love for their children that they lay down rules and laws and regulations and exact the requirements, in order that their children may become disciplined into the paths of that which is right and good and in keeping with the highest concepts of a well-ordered society. Such parents know that unless their children are properly taught and trained and disciplined, then a miserable and wrecked life awaits them in the future. That is why they become corrected; that is why the disobedience becomes punished; that is why such children are quite occasionally very unhappy, and even miserable beyond words. And it is not uncommon for such at times to rage to one another about their parents and what they will do and will not do when they grow up and get big enough and strong enough. But much to the contrary, as they grow older and enter into understanding, their moments of unhappiness are further apart, until eventually as they approach young manhood or young womanhood, they are a happy family; they understand the meaning of life and that all their past disappointments and griefs have been incidental to their own waywardness and childish ideas. The home takes on peace and harmony, and beauty becomes a manifest part thereof.

Now transpose this picture to that of God the Father, Who has here on earth a multitude of children in the school of experience and in the home of growing discipline. We see the people of various ages; we look upon them as fully grown up and maybe very old. But inside dwells a spirit begotten by the Heavenly Father; and because that spirit may as yet be very young and without spiritual understanding and too young to have come into an understanding of the Heavenly Father's Will, I say, because of this, they are perpetually breaking the laws of God the Father and going contrary to His Will. Therefore does the Heavenly Father institute corrective measures and take disciplinary action against them. Therefore do we see a world of people full of sickness, of trouble, of grief and of tribulation.

How can the young child avoid being disciplined in a normal home? You know the answer as well as I: by learning the will of the parent and striving to one's utmost to obey all rules and regulations. Precisely the same principle applies with reference to people in this world and their indwelling spirits – begotten by the Heavenly Father. So soon as they learn the Will of the Heavenly Father, and become conversant with the great many laws governing their being and this universe, and then commence with all that they are within to live to the fullness the Will of the Father, then does their life commence to change: the funeral dirge of the past transforms to a wedding march; the complaints and griefs and wails of the past, transform to a lilting melody; a love song bursts forth from the lips, punctuated by shouts of joy which cannot be suppressed.

I am sure that everyone who considers my statements has far more than enough intelligence to understand that if the youngster does not want to take that trip to the woodshed, he is careful to obey the father's command. And similarly, when you and I have had enough, and what we might think of as too much of the Father's whiplash, then we become busy to learn the fullness of His Will and to carefully understand the laws governing our being, even the laws governing this universe.

Look upon the immense amount of sickness in the world, even to the extent that comparatively young people are dying off – from heart failure, cancer and other multiplied diseases which are preventable (especially while young). Any good doctor will tell you that by far the most of such diseases can be avoided through right living. In other words, they suffer and die because of BROKEN LAWS OF HEALTH.

That ignorance which today obtains with regard to matters of health can be multiplied by ten to approximate people's ignorance concerning the spiritual laws which govern the life of man.

As an observance of the laws of health will lead to a healthful and long life, so similarly does the observance of Spirit-laws of the Kingdom of God lead to a life of PEACE and JOY and GREAT ACHIEVEMENT, as we scale the sunlit peaks of glory in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (in the here and now).

To further help you in learning the Father's Will, and the laws of His Kingdom, I have prepared a little book entitled Destiny: Create Your Own!

Leave it to "Father"!