The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 13 -
THE CASTING OUT FROM PARADISE
Now let us return to Adam and Eve and see how they and their two descendants conducted their lives before the all-seeing eyes of the holiness of Jehovah. And behold, for a short time which, according to your reckoning, amounted to thirty revolutions of the earth around the sun, called by you years, the couple lived with their blessed descendants whose number was the same as the number of years, except for Cain who was not blessed.
2
And now behold what furthermore happened. On the day of the Lord, already through Adam's heart appointed as a day of rest by eternal Love Itself and later by the angel on several occasions in remembrance of the great acts of merciful Love and for the most reverential contemplation of the boundless holiness of God, the good Father, Adam wandered alone through the countryside to admire the beauty of the landscape. The world appealed to him immensely, and his thoughts completely turned away from God.
3
Absorbed in his contemplations, he came to the banks of a great river. Its name was 'Eheura' or 'Remember the Time of Jehovah!' -for that is what the mightily rushing stream was calling. But Adam, deep in worldly thoughts, did not understand the meaning of this speech by the rushing waters of the stream.
4
When he was thus walking along the bank of the river his left foot became suddenly caught in a creeper laying across his path and then twisting around a big tree. He fell heavily and felt a great pain in his body, which was a new sensation for him. He was annoyed with the plant, looked at it angrily and asked whether it did not know its lord.
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And the plant replied: "No, I do not know you."
6
Then Adam had a closer look at the plant and did not recognize it. Again he asked: "What is your name and what is your use?"
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And lo, a wind was blowing through its leaves, and he understood the rustling which said: "Pick the berries from my branches, press them and drink their juice and my name and use will become known to you."
8
And Adam, blinded by his worldly thoughts and forgetting the day of the Lord, did what the plant had advised him. He took some berries, tasted them and found them very sweet. He was pleased about this new discovery, but vexed with the angel for not having shown him this plant with the so palatable berries.
9
He picked a large quantity of berries and took them home, where he arrived when the sun was about to set.
10
Eve, accompanied by Cain, came to meet him and relieved him of part of his burden. They were the only ones who had worried all day not knowing where Adam had gone. All the others did know, but did not worry on the day of the Lord about Adam, the father of their bodies, because they were blessed children and their thoughts were all with God and His eternal Love. Adam told them about his new find and Eve was very pleased and did with the help of Cain as suggested in Adam's story.
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Then Adam took the squeezed-out juice and said: "Let us find out its name and use."
12
And behold, he gulped down some of the juice, passed it then to Eve and Cain and finally to all the others, except for Abel who was not present because the fire was still burning on the altar he had erected for offering to the holiness and love of Jehovah sacrifices that would please the Lord.
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And Adam, Eve and all who had tasted of the juice became drunk and inflamed in the desire of their flesh committed fornication and harlotry, while Abel was praying at Jehovah' s altar.
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When they had finished with their fornication, having in their drunkenness forgotten God and the demanded offering of their hearts, the angel with the flaming sword in his right hand appeared first to Abel and gently spoke to him, saying:
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"Jehovah was well pleased with your offering and has, therefore, chosen you to save your parents and your brothers and sisters who otherwise would have perished on the day of the Lord when they forgot Him and lowered their hearts to the earth and could not receive the blessing which, according to the established order on this day always flows from above into all the infinite spaces.
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"Therefore, I have returned visibly to first of all gather your offering into this vessel of merciful grace, which is the eternal Son within the Father, and to present it before His most holy countenance, the apple of the eternal Father's eye. But prior to that still to chastise the transgressors of the law of love and the commandment of holy grace, to withdraw from them a great part of the gifts, to smite them with blindness and cast them out of Paradise.
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"Now leave your sacrificial altar, place yourself at my left hand so that my chastising fight hand may be free for the transgressors, and follow me into the house of sin. When I shall have awakened the sleeping sinners from their drunkenness of fornication and they, seized with great fear, will flee before the sword of justice, follow them as one who is also fleeing and carry for the parents of your body a small part of the lost gifts and hand it to them for their support when, exhausted and weeping they will fall to the ground in a distant land, called 'Ehuehil' or 'Land of Refuge'. In that land you shall erect a sacrificial altar like this one here, which will keep burning, even under the waters that one day will cover the earth. It will turn into a mountain inaccessible to mortal feet until the great Time of times when it will incline its summit towards the valley which will be called 'Bethlehem', or the small town of the great king, and one day will become the greatest on earth. Its light will shine brighter than the light of the spirits of all the suns. On this new altar you shall burn thank-offerings to the Lord from all the kingdoms on earth in this land of refuge to make it more bearable to the sinners, strengthen the penitent and comfort the grieving."
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When the angel had ended his speech to Abel, they rose and solemnly walked to the mansion of Adam, which, in accordance with his might and power, was round and very spacious, formed by freely growing tall cedars in shape similar to the temple of Solomon. It stood close to the cave of penitence and the thorn-bush of grieving and had two entrances, a narrow one towards the east and a wide one towards the west.
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And behold, it was the middle of the night - it could not be earlier because of the day of the Lord - that the angel of the Lord with Abel came to the threshold of the eastern entrance.
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As Abel stepped on the threshold he began to weep because of the great disaster about to come upon his people.
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Then the angel said to him with a gentle voice: "Do not weep, Able, you blessed son of grace, but do what I bade you do out of eternal Love speaking through my mouth. And do not be frightened by the words of thunder descending upon these sleeping sinners."
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And Abel did as commanded by the angel, and when he had reached his people the angel thundered serious and frightening words of terror and great fear upon the now awakened sinners, shouting with great power and force:
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"Rise, Adam, remember your guilt and flee from here, for you cannot stay here any longer. You have lost the Paradise for yourself and all your descendants until the great time of times. You have also lost a great part of the gifts through your sin when you forgot the Day of the Lord and became drunk from the juice of a plant that was a masterpiece of the serpent, invented to rob you of your freedom, to entangle your feet and confuse your senses, to forget God and make you sleep in gross sin.
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"So flee wherever you want to from the face of Love. And wherever you flee, you will encounter the fullness of the just wrath of God, but your share of love will be measured out to you only sparingly,"
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And behold, Adam rose from the ground with Eve and an the others who had slept owing to the intoxicating drink from the serpent's plant and as a result had lost Paradise, with the exception of Abel who had remained sober, not having tasted of the intoxicating drink, and had remembered the Day of the Lord (as you, too, as true children of a Father, as holy and good as I am, shall constantly remember the holy tranquility of the Sabbath, as the true Day of the Lord and shall do on Sunday what I bade you do).
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When Adam saw the angel he, together with his descendants, was so terrified that he was unable to utter a single word for an excuse, He was as if paralyzed by fright, for only now did he realize what he and his people had done before the eyes of Jehovah.
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He threw himself at the feet of the Lord's angel and wept and cried for mercy, for the flaming sword had opened his eyes, and he recognized in this terrifying light of punishing justice the gravity and immensity of the unspeakable disaster he had by his carelessness brought upon himself and all his own.
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But the angel stood there blindfolded and with plugged up ears, as commanded by the love of the Father, and spoke with a thunderous voice out of the might and power of Jehovah.
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'There is no grace in justice and no freedom in judgment. Therefore, flee, driven by punishing justice, lest the judgments of Jehovah overtake your lingering feet. For punishment is the reward of justice, He who accepts it as deserved can still expect mercy, but he who resists justice and its consequences is a traitor to the inviolable holiness of God and will be subjected to the judgments of God where there is no longer any freedom, but eternal captivity in the wrath of the Deity.
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'Therefore, flee and weep and implore wherever your feet carry you. And where they will refuse their service to you, there remain, weep, implore and pray that you may not perish with Eve and all the others - through you."
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And behold, Adam rose again and wanted to flee according to God's command through the angel, but he was unable to do so, for his feet were as if paralyzed. And he began to tremble and shake all over from fear of God's judgment with which he had been threatened by the angel of the Lord.
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And Adam again fell down on his face and wept and cried aloud: "Lord, You almighty and great God in Your great glory of holiness, do not steel the heart of Your infinite love and mercy completely against me who am so weak before You and give me enough strength that I, the most unworthy, may be able to flee from Your judgments arising from Your most holy will to which all Your creatures are subject, as also I am. O Lord, hear my entreaty!"
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And behold, eternal Love spoke to Abel through the mouth of the angel, as I am now speaking through your impure one:
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"Abel, behold the father of your body and help him. And behold his wife Eve, the mother of your body, languishing on the ground, and raise them both up so that they and all the others may be strengthened for their flight. And the good and holy Father will be pleased with you for showing love to the weak father and mother of your body as well as to all your brothers and sisters regardless of whether they are blessed or not. For your power will strengthen them and the fullness of the grace within you refresh them. Thus, lead them with the hand of filial love and the hand of brotherly loyalty with great patience and love to the place I will indicate to you by causing them all to sink down from exhaustion.
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'There remain and let the exhausted rest, and then concentrate your whole being upon Me that I may endow you with an abundance of power for the strengthening of your parents according to their degree of need and susceptibility, and for the revival of your brothers and sisters according to their need and susceptibility. Now do what I have commanded you, and do it out of love for them and out of obedience to Me."
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And lo, the pious Abel was filled with merciful love, knelt down and thanked God from the bottom of his heart, melting into tears and then, strengthened from above, took the bands of his weak patents and did out of great love what the Lord had commanded.
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When Adam saw his son help him, as well as his mother and an the others, he said, deeply moved: "O my beloved son, since you came to help me in this our great distress, receive my blessing as thanks and as a consolation for your weak father and mother!
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"And you, who are still worthy of the holy Father's love, give thanks to the Lord on my behalf and that of all of us who have made ourselves unworthy of uttering His most holy name.
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"So let us now flee in accordance with the will of the Lord."
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And behold, the angel wielded the sword of justice, and they all fled quickly for days and nights, on and on, without rest.
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Thus they arrived in the already mentioned land where the sun, scorching hot, stood directly above their heads. Nowhere all around them could any grass be seen on the ground, nor any trees or shrubs. And lo, here Adam and Eve with all the others sank completely exhausted to the ground into the hot dust and closed their eyes, compelled by the force of be numbing sleep. Thus they slept as if unconscious, ensnared in their weakness in disgrace.
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And behold, the Lord's angel, who had hitherto visibly persecuted them, went to Abel who was standing there in the fullest freshness of the might and power from above, and said:
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"Abel, behold, of all the sacrifices you have made to the Lord of Holiness in the purity of your heart, none was greater than this one and none as pleasing to Him. Therefore, as willed by Him, take this sword of justice from the hand of your brother from above - since we are children of one and the same holy Father - and use it according to the might of wisdom and the power of love for the benefit of your people. Revive within them the weakened power of life, cause love for the Love of the holy Father to burn anew and kindle within their hearts the flame of the righteous fear of God. I shall not leave you, but at all times stand invisibly by you, my beloved brother, and if you wish it also visibly, always prepared to serve you in the will of the Lord.
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"Behold, the handing over of the sword signifies your complete freedom, like my own, and thus the Lord's will has become your will and has set you above all law and made the commandments your property. Now you are, like me, an immortal son of the holy Father's love in the pure kingdom of light of the free spirits.
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"And now do to your parents and the brothers and sisters of your body according to your love and wisdom!"