The Trail of the SerpentPart 8

The Garden of Eden1 Rose was talking to me on the way up our driveway the other day... just thinking about that song and thinking about how nature is able to praise the Lord and even the birds are able to sing to him, and they know when earthquakes are coming. We were going into our drive and Sister Rose was saying ‘I wonder if that bank’s going to be alright’? There’s a bank that looks a bit fragile and the birds are making their houses in it and she said ‘No, I think it’ll be fine. The birds know’.2 The Lord Jesus came and said to Israel’s people ‘If you’re not going to praise me, I’m going to raise up a bunch of rocks, and they’ll give thanks to me’... so even the rocks can praise God. So if the rocks can praise God how much more the Lighthouse Christian Fellowship? Amen. Hallelujah. We will not let the rocks cry out. We will be the ones to give praise to our Lord. Amen. Hallelujah.3 I asked Brother Maangi to come forward and say a few words. My wife has said to me that it’s a good idea I think and a good practice, heartfelt... a warm, welcoming thing, to include our children in the way of acknowledging them for their achievements. And I think it’s a good thing to encourage our young ones. We always want to say positive things... put in something that would encourage them along the way. We all like encouragement don’t we? Do you like it…do you ladies... when your husband encourages you and say good things about your cooking and everything else? Sure you feel satisfied. And Brother Branham, in the Church Ages said ‘The Lord brags a little on the Church. He says a good thing in every Age and he brags on her’. We can learn something from that in our own household, to give, credit where it’s due. 4 So, in that line of thought, I asked Brother Maangi if he would come and say a word for Sister Eden... and the message this morning is a birthday message for ‘The Garden of Eden’. So its Eden’s birthday isn’t it today? Happy birthday Eden. God bless you. (Brother Maangi speaks of Eden’s achievement and follows with a song). Well, that’s pretty cool. A very nice song well sung... a good occasion. Beautiful, meaningful lyrics. A very nice way to start the service. Amen. Is everybody happy today? Hallelujah.5 I have just a simple little message this morning. It’s about Eden. I wasn’t actually thinking particularly about Eden’s birthday but it coincided, so I thought ‘That’s fantastic’. That’s just the way the Lord does things. We’re on the series ‘The Trail of the Serpent’... and today is the Chinese New Year celebration of ‘The Year of the Water Snake’… ‘the year of the serpent’. There are different serpents but this year it’s the ‘water serpent’. The Chinese Zodiac... the animals that they have in their Zodiac... depict the characteristics of people born at that time. So whoever’s born this year is born under the symbol of ‘the serpent’ in the Chinese way.6 I read up about ‘the serpent’ in the Chinese Zodiac. It’s not to be feared, or a symbol of sin, like as ‘the serpent beguiled Eve’ in the garden. One commentary said that ‘it’s not to be associated in that manner’ – the symbol of the serpent. So that’s right. Here we are on this Chinese New Year celebration of the serpent and we are taking away the association of the serpent with the traditional understanding of what took place in the Garden of Eden.7 So here we are on Eden’s birthday. It’s the Chinese celebration of the year of the serpent, we’re in the series of ‘The Trail of the Serpent’, and this morning’s message is ‘The Garden of Eden’. We have heard mentioned many times about Eden, or we have seen our Prophet talk about an ‘Edenic condition’... and we have spoken it and mentioned the term called the ‘Edenic condition’. we’re trying to take away the absolute thought of Eden being a garden or a place… a geographical location. Although it might well be that, and we can

locate where Eden was in the Bible... geographically locate it. But we want to get away from the traditional thought of Eden being a geographical location.8 We know that God always speaks in symbols doesn’t He? God likes symbology. The first thing He ever did was hang the sun up there. He was thinking about Himself being ‘The Great Light’… that there is no existence and there’s no life without Him. So He hangs the sun up there... then He hangs the moon up there. We know what the moon is... it’s the lesser light... and stars being God’s children – Abraham’s seed. All the way through the Bible, the Great Almighty One is expressing Himself in symbology.9 Then we come all the way through the Old Testament... the same thing... up to Jesus. He said ‘A sower went forth to sow’. He’s speaking in parables. I’m talking about symbols. He said ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a mustard seed’. Now why didn’t He just come outright and speak in plain English? 10 If you want to summarise it, all the symbology and everything, is the great plan of redemption being expressed. God is showing the cycle of the seed… how that His offspring would come from a certain place and that they would transcend into the earth in a certain way and for a specific purpose.11 To put it simply, God, in the stars and the moon and the sun and in nature, is depicting that great plan without saying it in English. 12 So language is really the thought and intent being expressed. And God is showing forth His intent for His seed by hanging a star up here… the North Star, the Morning Star13 A man is symbolised in the Bible as a tree. The Bible in Psalm 1, says ‘A man is like a tree planted by rivers of waters’. So man… we’re not talking only about males now ladies, you’re a part of this – we’re talking about mankind. And man is actually feminine and masculine. So you ladies are man as well, OK? You’re the feminine side of the man and he’s the masculine side of you. So mankind is what we are talking about.14 And the Garden of Eden though it be, if you like, a geographical garden with a physical location... in the mind of God it’s a symbol. 15 He was thinking and expressing His thoughts when He hung Virgo in the stars, all the way through to Leo. He’s thinking thoughts. And the thoughts are towards His seed and the characters they should bear when they come into the earth. The activities they should be involved in and their whole pathway is all mapped out. How wonderful is the cycle of the seed of God, symbolised all the way through the stars, the moon and everything else.16 So God plants a man in a garden. And the garden, we know it’s beautiful. There are trees, there are herbs, there are spices, there are roses, and there are all kinds of things in the garden. So God made a garden like that, all the while He’s thinking and He is symbolising. And the great symbol of the Garden of Eden is humanity. 17 When Jacobs’s ladder was set up, and he saw angels coming down, God said to him ‘That’s your seed’ So we see the Celestial, Theophany man transcending the ladder of Jacob which is the seed that Jesus spoke of being planted in the earth. 18 So now the Garden of Eden is symbolising the plan of redemption in human life. And in particular, I’m thinking about the four rivers that flowed out of Eden. We want to take that and place that in the human being... it’s actually God thinking about the anatomy of a human being.19 He talks about a tree bearing fruit and the type of fruit you can and can’t eat. And what was all that about, people? We know what it was. It was about human beings. It was about biology and biological attraction. It was talking about passion… humanity and the bringing

forth of children. Even before God gave man the anatomical parts, He said to him ‘Go forth and replenish the earth and multiply’. He said ‘Multiply and replenish the earth’ Man already had the ability to speak the Word but we know really, the plan of God was to bring forth children. I’m going to say it differently… it was to bring forth children by human instrumentality. 20 The perfect plan and in a perfect world… an ideal world, human beings would be created by the Spoken Word. However the plan has it that human beings were to be created through human attraction… I’m talking about the birds and the bees. It’s what the garden of Eden is all about isn’t it? It’s about Adam’s Valentine. A little attraction... a biological, chemical attraction between human beings for the purpose of producing little human beings so that more Celestial Bodies, can inhabit them. That’s the whole thought and that’s what the whole thought of Eden is… creation. Immediately God told Adam ‘Go forth and multiply and replenish the earth’. See what’s in the mind of God right there in Genesis One. And then God creates Himself a man and stands him in his body. That’s the ideal way of creating bodies to inhabit.21 Here comes Adam... Spoken Word born. He’s fully grown. He’s twenty one years old and he’s standing right there. But then God changes the whole system. After Adam and Eve partook of ‘the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’, babies were to be born differently. 22 So in the Garden of Eden, God was thinking... multiplication and replenishing the earth. The first, ideal way, was by the Spoken Word. There came Adam – fully grown. Adam and Eve partook of the human element and ‘the fall’, as we call it, in the Garden of Eden happened. And so God said to the serpent, ‘On your belly you shall go’. He’s speaking to the physical side of Adam... the beast. He’s talking to the serpent, the beast… the outer shell... the carnal man now and He says ‘You shall change your position. You will not be born fully-grown, you’re going onto the belly… on your belly you shall go’.23 Instead of being fully-grown, standing on his feet, a baby is born and ‘on his belly’ he crawls. There’s the first serpent right there... or the reconstruction of the way people – mankind – should be born. How the physical body should be created. 24 So, the serpent was transformed. The way of procreation became tilted. Man came now through the biological system of humanity rather than the power of the Spoken Word. And now, in the Garden of Eden, the whole garden depicts that. That’s what I am saying to you. That whole garden scene is all about that.25 Now in Genesis Chapter 2, it says

9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight…

We’re talking about the garden of Eden this morning. ... and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

26 We are the tree of knowledge of good and evil... the outer man, and on the inside of us is the Tree of Life. Can you say ‘Amen’ to that? We know the Tree of Life is Jesus Christ. Christ himself that lives inside of human beings is the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life lives in the inside of you and on the outside of you is the tree of knowledge of good and evil.27 So here’s Adam standing here in the Garden of Eden and Eve standing the same way. She and He... both made up of that dual nature. They were dual beings, both with the tree of knowledge of good and evil on the outside and the Tree of Life on the inside... the only two trees in the Garden of Eden. Amen. So there we are in Genesis 2 and verse 9. As we go on… verse 10

10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

So let’s talk about that river in the garden and out from that river came these other four streams. 28 We know there is only really one River of Life and that’s Christ. He is depicted as the River of Life. The Bible tells us that the human race is symbolised as water. Is that true? When the angel comes in Revelation 17 and he shows John and John sees many waters and the angel tells him what the waters represent. He says ‘Those waters are people, nations and tongues’. So here… in Gods thinking in Genesis, in the Garden of Eden... He’s thinking about procreation. He’s thinking about multiplication and the systems that He would create to bring this life into the earth.29 So there’s the River of Life… number one. The centre of life is Christ. The sender of life is the Holy Ghost…. the breath of life. It’s called Quintessence in some languages which means ‘the very central thing’. It’s not natural, it’s supernatural. It’s Christ himself. Out from that one river comes four streams… our subject is ‘creation, multiplication, the Garden of Eden’. That’s what was in the mind of God when He laid all those trees there, when He put a serpent in there, tree of knowledge, tree of life… it’s all about bringing that seed into the earth… so are the four rivers now. The one river is Christ and it parted four ways. That’s our subject... ‘The Garden of Eden’.30 Garden simply means ‘a surround ‘or it’s ‘an enclosure’. A ‘surround’ and ‘an enclosure’ is a garden. Do you know that not only was Adam depicted as a tree or Eve as a tree but that the very garden itself is the human being? 31 The garden is a symbol of a human life. We’re going to get that in the scripture in a minute and I’ll show you in the ‘Song of Solomon’, where in Gods mind, when He thinks of a garden, he’s thinking of your biological make up. He’s thinking about your passion and He’s thinking about your anguish, God is thinking of all these things. When He’s making a garden, He’s thinking of all the temperaments that make up a community. Some of you are laid back, some of you are outgoing, some of you are very passive, and some of you are aggressive. Some of you are rational, calculating, organised, some of you are the other kind, Brother Neil, spontaneous… you act on the moment, care for the day. 32 All these temperaments are what God is thinking about when He’s creating the Garden of Eden, because a great garden comprises many characters and many colours. Some are tall in the garden, some are short, some are prickly and some are soft. I’m talking about plants... botany life and the characteristics and the features of all those different components that make a garden. In God’s mind He’s thinking about your biological make up. Your emotion, your mental state and your physical being, believe it or not, because as you read the Bible all the way through, He’s talking about man like trees planted by the rivers, a man is like a river. 33 ‘A woman is like an enclosure, a garden all decked out’… do you understand me? He wasn’t just thinking about beautiful pink things… little bits, or spikes of purple… He’s an artist and He loves the scent and the display of colour and how everything tones in and so forth, but His central thought is human beings… His central theme. He said to Adam, ‘I want you to run the garden’. See, the central theme is Adam... not the garden. And the garden is only a depiction of the Master of the Garden.34 So garden means ‘a surround’, ‘an enclosure’. Eden, in one interpretation I found, means ‘pleasure, paradise, an enclosure of paradise, an enclosure, a surrounding of pleasure’. We’re talking about creation and multiplication here. Adam and Eve are yet to discover this. I’m talking about before they committed the act in the Garden of Eden. God

was already thinking of the act when He was making Eden; He already had on His mind ‘paradise and pleasure’. So Adam and Eve had yet to discover that pleasure35 So out from this garden came four rivers. For centuries physicians were bent on studying biology based on the theories of a man who lived in Greece. He died in about 367 BC and his name was Hippocrates. He was a physician, a scientist, a biologist. 36 His theory is called the ‘four humors’. So now we’re going back in history. The basic theory was called the ‘four humors’ and humor, in Greek, means ‘sap or juice’. Sap... that’s the life of a tree… that’s what humor means. 37 So in his study of the human body he said the human body is made of four rivers... four types of fluid... ‘black bile’, ‘yellow bile’, ‘phlegm’ and the fourth one was ‘blood’. 38 Physicians and biologists have studied those four areas of the human body for 2000 years. Men studied these four rivers in order to cure diseases... even in order to understand somebody’s mood, because mood swings are relative to the foods we eat. Just give a kid a bunch of sugar. 39 Just look at the kids and the effect sugar has on them. It flips them upside down. They get excited. What is that? It’s a chemical reaction. 40 The chemical, biological reaction, actually effects their mood. Mood isn’t so much something that you can put your finger on, in the way that I can put my finger on your blood when it drips. 41 So there’s a connection between our mood and our physical state, and often our moods are dependent on, or influenced by the foods we eat. Are you with me on that? The most wise, rational, calm, spiritual, spontaneous, organised people in the Bible were Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Their whole demeanour, their whole attitude… the Bible said they were seven times wiser. They were seven times brighter in their countenance. 42 They had a blending... a good balance of the four rivers. They had all those four in harmony, therefore they were like Messiahs on the planet, so much so that the King said ‘I’m giving my whole Kingdom to be run by these boys’. What was it? They affected their mood and their attitude and approach both to man, to the King and to God... by the foods they chose to eat.

43 I’m sure that I can improve my life by improving my diet... don’t you think so? I think we want to make some changes. I saw your lips saying ‘Amen’ at the back there Aaron. Thank you. He’s one of those boys that are down that line of health and the study of health and so forth. Your diet does affect your moods and it does affect the way you relate to people. So now these four rivers in Eden… that’s what we’re talking about. 44 ‘Melancholy’ is an attitude and a mood. It’s an atmosphere. We’re talking about the soul realm now. Do you know what the soul is? The soul is about character and personality, an atmosphere that the personality puts out. That’s the soul. The soul is the nature of the spirit. Your nature is either ‘outgoing’ or your nature is ‘reclusive’. Your nature is calm and collected, or your nature is aggressive and dominating. It’s either one of those four... melancholic, sanguine, choleric, or phlegmatic. 45 The name ‘phlegmatic’, is actually a word that’s spelt like ‘phlegm’. Hippocrates and early biologists taught... that the mucus in the body and the amount of it, or the imbalance of it had a an effect on human behaviour, or mood.46 But Biologists, Scientists and Doctors and (should be), Ministry, ought to be checking the body and be a discerner of the body’s imbalances, in order to bring healing to the body, and to bring a nice atmosphere into the body... to get the body functioning with all the

dynamics that God intended, so that we don’t live below our potential. So we don’t want to come to Church and keep feeding you a bunch of sugar cubes. All we’re going to have is a bunch of hyperactive Pentecostals jumping up and down, with no substance. 47 There’s a mood going on amongst them that is actually caused by an imbalance in the food that has been fed to them. So we do want to feed you Spiritual Food in Due Season. What for? So that we can give you a healthy ‘Edenic condition’, with all of your four rivers in balance. 48 Melancholic literally means ‘black bile’. You watch the word ‘colic’ – ‘melancholic’. It relates directly to black bile. So you say ‘Someone’s melancholic’... that’s a mood. It’s kind of passive, a little bit agitated, uncertain, anxious, even reserved, and timid… that’s melancholic. I’m talking from the studies of classical biologists who described someone who is melancholic as having ‘an imbalance of black bile’, relating back to the rivers that flow through the body.49 What we’re doing in this service is taking everything back to the Garden of Eden and back to those four rivers, so that we can keep a balance in the body. Let’s put it this way... these are four rivers that are important to us… the Lion, the Ox, the Man and the Eagle. One river of Jesus Christ... the life... and out from him flows an Ox anointing… the characteristics of an ox where the Church Body could bear the burden of the ages. Look at that character being impressed in the Church.50 And the Man anointing... to be shrewd, to be calculating, to be able to put books together and organise words.... to bring the scrolls and present a Bible and teach people. Man… I’m thinking of man.51 The Eagle anointing stays above the natural elements… it’s able to get above everything else. That’s the character of a Prophet being embedded in the Church in the last days.52 There are four of them. The Lion is the first one… he’s courageous… a lion. The Bible talks about springing forth. In the first Age the Church sprung forth with a whole lot of courage and authority. They weren’t like the timid people of the Old Testament, where they were beaten down by the Law and subject to the Priest. Out from the Church, in the beginning, was the attribute of a Lion… the character and nature of the King of the jungle was embedded in God’s people.53 The four rivers… the Lion, the Ox, the Man and the Eagle. There are four elements which supposedly effect us in our moods. The four elements which affect us are, Air, Fire, Earth and Water…

54 There is a fifth element. Have you ever heard of the ‘fifth element’… like I mentioned the word ‘Quintessence’? The fifth is ‘The essence of the entire being’, and we are effected by all of these elements but mainly by the central theme... the ‘Fifth Element’. It’s the Celestial realm... the 6th dimension... the Eternal force... the breath of Life. Man just looks and he sees wind. He looks and he sees fire. I was thinking about the relevance of fire. How does man come to ‘fire’ as being ‘an essential element’? In development... in industry, and even in the beginning, to make a spear there had to be fire to make iron. The way that man formed and forged his way into a modern state of flying aircraft and spacecraft, is all related to fire, isn’t it? Computers and everything else is formed by fire.55 Earth… well we’re bound to this place earth. We don’t have to talk about the earth. We know all about the earth and all of its pollution and how now we’ve been trained... how we’ve been taught to take care of the earth. You have little containers for plastic bottles and little containers for glass bottles and you have some for vegetation. If you’re a good ‘Greenie’, you have all these little sections. What is it? Man has become conscious that the earth has become polluted and he’s been responsible for it, so he’s doing something about it. 56 But the Bible said ‘I will’... this is God speaking... ‘I will destroy them that destroy the earth’. This afternoon I don’t know where I’m going to be with my food, but I trust that in all our talking it might have an effect and influence the food we take in, both naturally and spiritually. It might create such an atmosphere that people would love to be around us, both as individuals and as a collective body. 57 That’s the whole point otherwise we could just go on talking about anything we like, take any subject out of the hat but I want it to have a purpose. Amen. So I want you to know my purpose, straight off. We’re talking about these four humors... these four central rivers that flow and make up the Garden of Eden. And we truly are The Garden itself. Now here comes the first river. Pison is what I’ll call it. The name Pison, means ‘it compasses the whole land of Havilah’. Havilah means to ‘bring forth’, as in bearing children.

Genesis 2 11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah...Think of the Garden of Eden. God put all these things there... He named all these places.

58 He was getting Moses under the inspiration… ‘I want you to understand name of this place’... ‘I want you to name this river’... ‘I want you to name’… Do you mean Moses was doing that? Moses was the one who was transcribing what he’d seen in the vision, when he wrote the Garden of Eden account. It was Moses, under a great prophetic anointing and inspiration, and the knowledge and mind of God had been given to Moses. So Moses was writing what he saw… his account of Eden... and all these places were named because God had one thing in his mind. ‘Go forth, multiply and replenish the earth’.59 How about spiritually, as a congregation? Ought we to be thinking about procreation and how we ought to be sowing seed in the community? Should we be thinking about a womb of the earth that we should be able to get out there and bring forth children in this Third Testament? 60 The name of the first is Pison. God’s got recreation, procreation, and multiplication on his mind. Pison means ‘to increase’. Havilah, the place that Pison watered, means ‘to writhe in travail’, ‘to bear and bring forth’. This whole place is saturated with the mind of God if you want to take it. This whole set-up in Eden was God thinking about bringing the seed of Abraham... transcending down through into physical bodies... and how to look after those bodies. We haven’t got any greater physician than God himself. There’s no greater biologist than God himself. 61 The greatest scientist himself, who made white blood cells; who made red blood cells; who made them balance with each other. He’s the one who created the heart, the lungs and everything that goes with the brain. He knows all about the sperm and how it comes and how many of them and which one of them makes it and comes out to be a crawly little baby, who looks like a possum... who would grow up to be a teenager, and become rebellious, to settle down later on and have children himself. God is not an old cave critter carving a bunch of thoughts on rocks.62 What I am trying to say is, this simple little garden scene is actually very complex. It’s very biological and scientific. It’s extreme, from the very laboratory of the mind of God, concerning the human race. I know that sounds fantastic. I’m not trying to make it sound sensational but God is an awesome God. He is the Almighty, the omnipotent, so I don’t want to make this little garden thing look like my little garden.63 God is the great gardener. He is the artist. He’s the biologist. This is not simplistic; this is sophisticated, without trying to be difficult. This is an awesome being we are dealing with. So in case you think we are just sensationalising the Garden of Eden just look at the human body and think about that and see who’s sensationalising what. This is enormous, people. 64 Havilah means ‘a circle’… it’s an enclosure again. It’s actually the womb. And it means ‘to writhe and travail’, to ‘bear and bring forth’. We are talking about the four rivers in the garden here. 65 Gihon, the second river, means ‘to bring forth’.

Genesis 213 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole

land of Ethiopia.14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of

Assyria... The third river in the garden of Eden is Heddekel, which means ‘rapid’. It’s talking about ‘rapid’ as in a river... what can we say about a rapid? It’s the coming together of many waters and being forced and squeezed together to produce some dynamic force. That’s what we are... the Church… many waters. Not just a passive spring but a thundering mighty noise.

66 We’re talking about waters coming together... talking about a family being born. The gathering together of the waters is the gathering together of Gods people.

14 ... And the fourth river is Euphrates.Euphrates means ‘fruitfulness’. Everyone is quite familiar with the name, Euphrates. There it is again… in the Garden of Eden to be fruitful is actually to multiply yourself. 67 If I was to sit here in an empty Church that’s not really the ideal in the mind of God. But actually his mind is, you get out there and you plant some seed and I want you to have a big family. What the complete thought of God is, is for you to multiply. Not sit back there and say nothing and do nothing. Get out on the field, take the Sword of the Word, find the womb that would receive it plant that Testament and bring forth another Book. 68 Even in the natural act of a male and a female having a little family is actually the same thing. Behind the scenes, the great biologist, God himself thinking I want a shell and I want it to have four rivers in it. I want to have this character and that character and this character because I want this, my gene, to come into that and be born and live in this planet. 69 Those are the four rivers, and we have talked about the four basic bodily liquids. I’m just setting a foundation. Those are the five elements right there.

The four rivers, because a river is life… Christ the river of life. Those four living creatures are Christ, aren’t they? The four living creatures... John saw them. Brother Branham called them four life messengers.70 In the Garden of Eden, out from the river of life, came these four streams. What a great Body this is. That there is a Body of 2000 years The Church... made up of Lion, Ox, Man and Eagle.

71 The fifth element (the quintessence, the very central theme) is the great Light himself… Christ is the great river. He’s the great river these four came from. We’re in the Garden of Eden right there.72 We know our lives contain characteristics… we’re bullyish or brash, sweet and gentle, calm, intelligent... some who act not so intelligent in one way, but are very intelligent in other ways. They have dreams and they can interpret them. They see visions. They speak in tongues and some interpret them… that’s an intelligence. I’m talking about characteristics, personalities and traits. So that’s why I’ve got the Scorpio there , and the Capricorn. We’re not talking about the Chinese Zodiac. We’re talking about God’s Zodiac.

73 In Revelation 12 there was woman with twelve stars about her head. Those twelve stars are governing bodies that govern the baby that is born from the womb in Revelation 12. So

Revelation 12 is the bringing forth. Remember what those four rivers represent? Be fruitful, breaking forth, writhing and bringing forth, like a woman bringing forth... in travail. 73 Those four rivers are all about giving birth. Giving birth to what? It’s giving birth to characters, giving birth to Scorpios, and giving birth to Capricorns. Here’s Eden’s birthday now. What’s the sign of this month? What’s your symbol? It’s Aquarius... that’s what it is. Brother Don’s birthday is on the 8th. What’s the date today? The 10th. So here the sun is in the cycle of Aquarius and those born in this month, in this time, in this season are born under the Aquarian symbol.74 I put these four fluids anywhere , because I was racing this morning. I didn’t have time but I will organise them for you. So I just threw them right there but they all relate to each other. Black bile relates to those characters, those personality traits, blood… of course the way the blood… the blood in itself is made up of four main constituents.

We’re getting these four now. We are calling them the rivers that spring forth from the great fountain of life.75 Blood… does anyone know the four constituents of blood? It’s made up of red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma and platelets. If you get blood and put it in a test tube, it will separate and it’s got different shades and colours to it. We see the four rivers are right there represented in the blood stream.76 The four rivers of the Garden of Eden… those four rivers of life are the plasma, the red blood cells, the white blood cells and the platelets. There is no life without them. Now you get them unbalanced... you get them to fight one another... you’re in trouble. You’ll bleed to death, you’ll clot to death, you’ll go pale and anaemic and die of anaemia... or you could have an oversupply of red blood cells... you can die from that as well. You have no anti-bodies… all the white blood cells are destroyed, depleted. You become sickly. After a little while we want to get a conviction going on, about good eating.77 What we are talking about here this morning is the Garden of Eden. It’s an Edenic condition…of the human body. God had that on His mind when He put the flowers and everything else there. The four rivers… He knew exactly in His mind. He was thinking about multiply, replenish, be fruitful, writhe and bringing forth. That’s what He was thinking otherwise why did He name them that way? He did it to bring forth life... the character of

Sagittarius, of Gemini, of Taurus and Aries, the nature of Aquarius, and of Pisces, Virgo’s character, Leo, Cancer, and Capricorn… they are all the different characteristics that you bear in your nature. Some are dominating characteristics and some are less dominant... some of you are wild and some of you are peaceful.78 I was studying the four temperaments and I was trying to decide which one am I. That’s a typical Gemini. He’s trying… ‘Which one am I, who am I’? In the end I thought, ‘Okay, that kind of sounds a little bit healthy to me’… blowing my own trumpet. I thought we were supposed to have them in balance. If we can have them in balance we’ve got a cake on the road.79 If you’re sanguine… let me give you a little example. We are talking about the four rivers which relate to your blood stream, which is the very source of life. When those four constituents are out of balance, you start going cuckoo. For this reason many sleep and many sickly not discerning the Lord’s body. That brings that to a point.80 So what we here doing is discerning the Lord’s body. What for? So that we can do away with sickness and sleepiness in the Church. Now I’m talking about mental attitude and mental aptitude towards the Word of God and towards one another. But this is the reason why many sleep and are sickly. You are not discerning the Lord’s body.81 The Lord’s body is made up of these four rivers… the Lion, the Ox, the Man and the Eagle. The reason the Church is asleep is because we don’t understand the four temperaments. We don’t know how to positionally place them and how to feed them, so they’d bring one back into line when you’re a little bit wild... when you’re always angry, always aggressive, always upset, and always anxious. Can you relate to that? we need to know how to bring that back into line and make it conducive to the Holy Ghost.82 I hear my wife say, often, ‘I don’t want to be like this, I don’t want to be this way, I want to be a better Grandmother, I want to have this better nature’. I feel her pulling for that in a certain way. There’s an imbalance in her mind that she recognises. I’m the same myself. In so many ways I see these imbalances and I want to bring them back into the right place. That is what this service is all about... discerning the Lords body... so that we are not restless, sleepy and sickly.83 So there are the four humors we talked about .... black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. We’ll talk about the four temperaments now. The Four seasons... we didn’t get that. We’ll go into that in the coming meetings… how the four seasons relate to the four temperaments. How the four seasons and the four temperaments are based on the four humors and how we feed them. 84 I think if you just want to throw away this study and have a look at Jon Parson, and what he’s come through physically. He showed me a chart about alkaline foods and acid foods. We didn’t go into great depths with it, but in a simple form there is something brilliant that he showed me, about acidity in the foods and how we become toxic because of an overdose of acidity – specifically based on white sugar, white flour, and everything else. We become a walking toxic waste. Just by an alteration of our diet we could look as good as Jon looks, at his age, and what he’s been through. I don’t know what you are eating now Jon. (Brother Jon speaks.)85 Well thank you, I hope you all heard that. Did you hear that? That’s nice, and thanks for that Brother Jon. See... the Holy Spirit knows that. He could pick him out right there like that, name him, and talk about what was on his mind. He is the discerner of the thoughts and intents and a discerner of the body. It’s wonderful. I think we ought to thank God for that. Hallelujah.

86 Earth, wind, fire and water … the four elements. Don’t forget there’s a fifth element. The main one... and that’s the River of Life. The other four elements sprung forth from it – it’s the Quintessence.

87

Sanguine: Just let me get this on closing now right now. The four temperaments… the sanguine temperament is fundamentally impulsive and pleasure-seeking. It sounds like just about most people… impulsive and pleasure-seeking. Sanguine people are sociable and charismatic. You say, ‘Well that’s not me really. Sometimes... at Christmas, maybe… I don’t know’. Just keep thinking about yourself. They tend to enjoy social gatherings and making new friends. They tend to be boisterous. They are usually quite creative and often daydream. This sounds a bit like you John. However some ‘alone time’ is crucial for those of this temperament… some ‘alone time’.88 Sanguine people can also be sensitive, compassionate, and romantic. Sanguine. He’s always talking about his lovely darling… he’s a real romantic isn’t he? Sanguine personalities generally struggle with following tasks all the way through. Not always, just says generally-speaking. They are chronically late… Jon, and you’re sociable. You’re out there doing and love gathering with people. That whole thing is quite nice. We’ve got a little bit of each character in every one of us. And the whole point of this thing is that where you lack, you realise you’ve got to top-up somewhere.89 Like I said to you, I want to connect more with people. Why is it that I feel a need and a lack of something? One of those four rivers is drying up... the ability to socialise… the social part of your nature is for what? So that you can be an influence and be a friend... pick somebody up. See that? So we need a little bit of that don’t we? 90 Sanguine people can tend to be forgetful, sometimes a little sarcastic. I’m a little bit forgetful and sarcastic. How about you? Some of you people have got a bit of sarcasm. Often when they pursue a new hobby they lose interest as soon as it ceases to be engaging or fun. They are very much people persons. They are talkative and not shy. Sanguine people generally have an almost shameless nature… like out there right in front... certain that what they are doing is right. They have no lack of confidence. Sanguine people are warm-hearted, pleasant, lively and optimistic… there’s Brother Andrew.

91 Choleric: These words actually come from Hippocrates and his biological study in relation to bile, the study of bile, and it’s affect on moods. The choleric temperament is fundamentally ambitious and leader-like. They have a lot of aggression, energy and passion, and they try to install into others. They lead a life out there, forthright, and try to get their way across, to give it to others. It is not a bad thing... this is all good. But when you say ‘He’s bad news. That fellow’s always in your face’, it’s actually one of those rivers being affected by one of the plagues of God.92 We can do away with the plagues that affect these rivers. When you get into the Book of Revelation, we see the vials and the plagues. Do you know who it is that pours out those plagues? It’s you and me. Crack a can of ‘Mother’, (sports drink) and down the hatch... we’ve just opened one of the vials and poured out a plague that affects the river Euphrates and dries up that river, so that the enemy might come in.93 The choleric temperament is fundamentally ambitious, leader-like with lots of energy. Many great charismatic military and political figures were choleric. They like be in charge of everything. However they can quickly fall into a deep depression and be moody… that’s me... out there doing. ‘Let’s go for it, we can do this thing’, and all of a sudden… ‘Bah... what’s it all about’? Brother Mark. Maybe there’s something coming from the vials and plaguing those rivers that we need to deal with.94 William Branham said ‘A quack Doctor will just put a plaster or sticky on top, but a real Physician will get down to the cause of the problem’. That’s why some left the Church, because we weren’t getting down to the cause of the core problems that people were having, emotionally and mentally and so forth, and probably they had their own problems as well. They were a little bit dysfunctional themselves. Anyways I just trust the Lord will bring them back because they’re good people. 95 Melancholic: The melancholic temperament relates to the black bile. Fundamentally they are introverted and thoughtful. Melancholic… I remember Brother Howard was going through some of these temperaments with us before. Often they are perceived as very overly pondering and considerate, getting rather worried. Do you sit there and think and worry sometimes? That’s melancholic. You know, we need to have this all in balance. We want to sum it up by bringing all these things in balance don’t we? Oh you’re a little bit down and not sure and a little bit anxious, uncertain. You need something that’s a bit stabilising, directive; something that will give you set boundaries… steps … put steps in place. 96 At least you know where you’re walking… one step at a time. But when you’re a bit melancholic you need to be stabilised, and that’s where other people come into play. That’s why we’ve got Dave Arnst on the Trust Board because that he understands the different financial and the psychological side of organisation and putting things in place, so wild guys like me can step on them and not be injured. That’s beautiful. We work together you know. That’s the whole point of this.97 the melancholic nature is self-reliant, independent, and can become preoccupied with the tragedy and cruelty in the world. That’s a bit like me too. ‘What’s becoming of the world? The world is such a dismal place’. I like it when I talk to Andrew. He says ‘Oh New Plymouth is a great place to live. Everything’s going on. I love it’. That’s what I like to hear. That’s a good sign, that’s the bright side, that’s looking at the positive. But this other side of the melancholic is ‘Everything’s a tragedy, there’s cruelty in the world’. 98 Often they are perfectionists, they are self-reliant and independent. One negative aspect of being melancholic is that they can get so involved in what they are doing they forget to think of others. If you’re like that, I want to remind you, ‘Get it together’. I don’t know how we are going to get it together, but even talking about it is a good start.

99 Phlegmatic: Phlegmatic people relate to water... phlegm in the body. An overdose of it isn’t good. It’s caused by an overdose of air in some people… vapour in the air relating to the lungs and the phlegm on the lungs. And the attitude that comes from it… phlegmatic. The phlegmatic temperament is fundamentally relaxed and quiet, ranging from warmly attentive to lazily sluggish.100 Phlegmatic people tend to be content with themselves. They are accepting and affectionate. They may be receptive and shy and often prefer stability to uncertainty and change. They like structure and form. They are consistent, relaxed, calm, and rational. It sounds like someone’s got a good brain on them. They are curious and observant (that’s the ability to study something… to be observant). They have qualities that make them good administrators. That’s what I was saying about Dave. They can also be passive-aggressive. 101 That’s a nice combination passive-aggressive. They’re out there doing it, but not in a dictator-like manner. Not like a sanguine. We’re talking about the condition... the Edenic condition... the discerning of the Lords Body. It actually is an analysis of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. God bless. Let’s stand to our feet. Let’s bring the musicians here. 102 I didn’t really get these thoughts and presentations tidy because it just started happening in the early hours of the this morning… it just kept breaking... the direction in which I should take this subject. So I thought I’m going to put it out here this morning like a foundational thing. We might take maybe two or three studies on it. I don’t want to take too long on that because I don’t feel totally qualified. Maybe through prayer we might reflect, bring some stories that relate to these temperaments, and bring answers that will bring a balance to them in our lives. That over all the soul, the Quintessence of this Fellowship, might project such a beauty… a radiant beauty... that it would be fruitful. That we might multiply, and that we might replenish this Third Testament earth. Amen.103 Heavenly Father, we are truly grateful to you for the Word this morning... a Word fitly-spoken, a Word in season… how good it is. Lord you brought it, it’s your Spirit and you’re bringing this to our attention. We would like to give you praise asking you would direct us, that you would inspire us, that we would not be just a teaching… a Theological study, something to fill our brain that we might be clever, but something that might mold and shape in us the dynamics of life, that when we take each other by the hand, it would be experienced. 104 The other person might experience our personality for their good… that we might take away the plagues and vials that affect the river. Hallelujah. Help us Lord. Just take these thoughts now… it’s a whole lot of thoughts to think in one little service, but your Spirit is able to take those Words and thoughts and take it to where it’s needed in every household represented here today.105 Lord we’ve seen the four rivers moving in the life of Jesus, the four temperaments. He who would display all together... you would hardly know if he was one or the other… so compassionate and so secluded and set aside and yet the Messiah, King of the earth. He was altogether a Lion, an Ox, a Man and an Eagle… Jesus the Messiah.105 We just are thinking about discerning the body and we ask for your help. Your Prophet would sing the song ‘The Great Physician now is near, the sympathising Jesus’. Lord we know you are sympathising with the people who have ailments in their bodies, eyesight failing, the blood system’s upset. People in our Church who are not here today because they are being affected... their Edenic condition is in need of need of attention. Bring them back to that pure state. Heal them Father.106 Lord there is so much that relates to nature and age and decay and we can’t be here forever but there is also much relating to that Quintessence, that Fifth Element, the supernatural power of the Almighty God that would work a miracle in our ageing people…

even that they could stand, even like Caleb would say ‘I’m just as strong today as I was when I left Egypt forty years ago’, or like the children of Israel, Lord, their sandals didn’t even wear out their treads. Bring forth from that essence Lord, the power of miracles that would work dynamic amongst us. As we are conscious of doing our part naturally and physically and that we not contaminate the Temple of God… while we are busying ourselves in this work of making adjustments so that it is a more beautiful place for you to live. 107 We ask you for that supernatural something to come down Lord and move amongst us in that Pillar of Fire to correct eyesight that is weary, to correct the blood stream. One in particular I’m thinking of. You are a miracle-working God, work supernaturally as we acknowledge the natural in our part to play. Don’t destroy us in your displeasure. Help us Jesus, each one of us, help us. Help our children, as they go to school and sometimes are unruly, and we don’t know what to do. We really do know what to do Lord. We turn to you this morning for our answers to our own feelings, to our own over-indulgences. We know what to do about it. We look to you this morning. 108 And there’s a man here… Christ... who can turn on the Light to discern the body and know the intents and thoughts of the heart. You placed it on Brother Jon’s heart Lord this morning, at the table, as we were coming to Eden’s birthday, in the year of the snake. Lord we are talking about the makeup of Lucifer, the serpent, the tree of knowledge of good and evil and we’re breaking them down into the four rivers that we need to treat with respect and be sensitive to. We need to be attentive to our Garden... to nourish it and keep it as you said. You placed Adam in earth to keep The Garden, so that’s what our thought is this morning. We are ‘keepers of The Garden’. There was no man to till the soil. Hallelujah. But you placed one here this morning… a God Man, a Spoken-Word Body, a Celestial Being living inside of the tree of knowledge. 109 We’re here to keep The Garden Lord. Teach us, oh Lord. Lead us and guide us in the way. Heal our Brother whom we love with all our heart. Heal him every way Father… who felt the burden of this subject, who was misunderstood somewhat – became overbearing and consumed. Bring him into the balance. Bring him into the thought this morning. Visit his mind. Visit his soul right now. Speak to him clearly as we express our love toward him in Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you. Thank you for being patient this morning.

13-0210 The Trail of the Serpent – Part 8 - The Garden of Eden - Pastor Mita Edwardson