This person is condemning the latter rain movement; and says, (First let me ask, How many of you have heard of the Manifest Sons, or the Latter Rain Movement? This is not a particular denomination, but rather a movement within many of our denominations.) "This Gnostic heresy entered the church today with promises of higher revelation and an invitation into a higher realm than they had before. It is not new. In the book of Colossians we see the apostle Paul refuting this old heresy: `there is nothing new under the sun.' The Gnostics of Paul's day believed they possessed the "gnosis" (Greek) or knowledge and that until you possessed what they had, you did not receive the fullness of God. In the late forties, a movement known as the "Manifest Sons" or the "Latter Rain Movement" took place in North Battlefield, Saskatchewan, Canada. Bill Britton, one of its later leaders, gives the date as February 11, 1948. Some of the early leaders of this movement were George and Ernest Hawtin and George Warnock. This was in the late forties. Then later William Branham brought this doctrine into many churches." Brothers and sisters: Bro. Branham never did teach anything like that. Any of you people who knew Bro. Branham, know for sure that he did not teach any such thing. I sat under his ministry from 1952 until he was taken off the scene in 1965; and I know for sure, he never taught any such doctrine. That is why I say, When you do not know what the truth is, you just take what someone else says and jump right on it; to criticize it and paint a negative picture; and 9 times out of 10 you will paint yourself into a corner. Therefore when we do put this message in print, rest assured this person will get one of our papers. I want this person to know, You are not listening to this from a man who vaguely heard of William Branham. From 1952 until he was taken off the scene, he never taught the manifestation of the sons of God, the way this person claims; the way the Latter Rain movement did. To him, the manifestation of the sons of God was something to be fulfilled in the coming of Christ according to Romans 8; and in the glorious reign with Him. Let me continue to read. "A book written in 1951, the Feast of Tabernacles by George Warnock is one of the most influential books, even to this date, for those who adhere to this doctrine. William Branham, once a Baptist minister, became known among the Pentecostal churches as a man of God and great prophet. He taught that the fall of man was sexual, (notice as I read these words, what this person says that he said,) and that Eve and Satan had a sexual union which produced Cain." He never taught any such thing as that. I say to the writer of this article, If you read our article, please send me the book where he said Eve and Satan had a sexual union. What he said was, that Eve and the serpent, not Satan, had a sexual union that produced Cain; and I say, Amen, to that; for it is the truth. The serpent was not Satan, and Satan was not the serpent; but Satan, (the devil) used the serpent creature, (which was not a snake at that time) to get Eve to disobey the Creator. When you read in Genesis chapters 2 and 3, where the serpent comes on the scene, please be assured of this; he is not the devil; and he is not Adam. Neither was he a worm, nor a snake; he was the most intelligent creature of all the animal kingdom; and he carried on a vocal conversation with Eve. He was a servant creature; endowed with that ability. It is from that very point in time; that we have to get Genesis straightened out in our mind's. I will finish reading this; then close the thought for now. "This led Branham to teach two opposite seeds, and the need for the special seed to herald the second coming of Christ. Branham believed that the "true seed" was the offspring of the sexual union between Adam and Eve, and the "false seed" was the offspring of the sexual union between Satan and Eve. The true seed produced Abel, while the false seed produced Cain. Branham was not the first to propose this idea." Well that is the truth; Bro. Branham was not the first one to teach on the seed of the serpent. Some of you may have heard of the Puritan doctrine? They were the old Puritan people out of which came the Quaker movement in England. They had a vague picture of this truth. Out of the old Quaker movement came the Shaker movement, founded by a woman down in Shaker Town, Kentucky. They had a vague concept of this; but Bro. Branham had the revelation of the thing that got mankind off course. We will read some more. "Branham was not the first to propose this idea. Others before had taught this, along with Reverend Moon of the Unification Church. They refer to this as the "serpent's seed teaching. (That is the man from Korea. I personally, do not know what he taught; but we do not brand Christendom with Moonie from Korea. Error is error. It matters not whether it came from the Catholic Church, or Mr. Moon; if it is error, it is error. That is the point we want to establish. You just simply cannot correct error with more error; which is what this article is mixed with.) "In the book Footprints on the Sands of Time, (pages 627-648) Branham told Christians to flee all churches." (I say likewise, The time has come, if you do not want to go to the same place they are destined to go, and spiritually fall with them, get out of them. They have all joined in a false unity; that cannot ever produce the kind of unity God's word speaks of. No, if your revelation is no deeper than that, stay with it; but remember, If you want to be like the early Church, then get out of those systems of religion; because the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Unitarian, the Christian Science, Seventh Day Adventists, and all the rest of them are divided over the word of God. However according to God's word, there is going to be a people here in the end time; brought back to the same knowledge and revelation that the early Church had; a people that holds the Bible to be the foundation of their faith and experience in Jesus Christ. They know how to live and walk with Him.) "William Branham became one of the key leaders in the Manifest Sons doctrine. (He did not.) in the 1950's and early 1960's. He believed that the "true seed" would deliver the world and would be a specially called-out group of Christians, the "Sons." He was able to bring this doctrine into the church through the healing manifestations of his ministry. (He taught no such thing; even though He did pray for the sick.) Many of the churches opened their pulpits to this and welcomed him without questioning his doctrine. He confused many in the church. Kurt Koch, in his book Occult Bondage and Deliverance, wrote that during the healing services Branham would fall into a trance and his "angel" would do the healing work, (Notice how they want to criticize.) telling him who to lay hands on and whom to send away. Branham was merely a slave to this "angel." Later in his ministry the "angel" had so much control over him that he would not go anywhere without the "angel" giving him permission. When Branham was questioned if the supernatural healings were done by the Holy Spirit, he replied, "No, my angel does it." Saints: I know that is not true; but there are people in the world today, that like to hear such things; so just expect to keep on hearing and reading such as this until God draws the curtain closed; and that mighty angel of Revelation 10, lifts His hand to heaven and declares that there shall be time no longer. That is when all of this kind of criticism will cease; and not before. Therefore at various times through this message, I am going to read sketches out of this article, that fit the part of the message we are dealing with. I have read this much, at this time, to set the stage for our next look into the book of Genesis; where we will definitely deal with what caused the fall of man; and got the whole world in the mess it is in. I hope none of you feel that I am taking a long time to get to the point in this particular part of our message; but I know there is a lot of religion criticism in the world today; so I want to take my time and make it scripturally clear. I am presenting this in this way; because I do not want to deceive anyone; but at least give everyone a chance to see a true picture, and give them a chance to get a proper understanding of how to look at things. When we are finished, then each of you can judge for yourselves whether we teach truth or not; but you will have to do it by the word of God, instead of the word of some critic that only knows half of the truth about the things they write about.

People who have a scriptural point they want to make will say, Just give it the WORD test; and of course that is exactly what we should do when we hear something we are not familiar with. However as you have heard me say so many times, Everyone has his own idea as to what the Bible means by what it says. That is why I said earlier, The Baptists fought the Methodists for years over sanctification. They just simply could not see the teaching, how it applied to the individual's experience and walk with God. Likewise the Methodists fought the Baptist people because they just simply could not see the reality of once saved, always saved; which is eternal security. They judged the Baptists because of that teaching. It is all in the Bible; but different groups see it different ways; and that is why there is so many different denominations in the ranks of professing Christians today. The early Christians to whom the New Testament was written, had no need to divide up into different denominations; because they all believed the same thing. They were not Catholics, nor Lutherans, nor Baptists, nor Methodists, nor Presbyterians, Church of Christ, Unitarians, Christian Science, nor anything else other than Christians. They were all of one body of people (throughout the old world) that believed what had been taught by those apostles who walked with Jesus; and that apostle Jesus called, while he was out persecuting Christians. Paul did not walk with Jesus during the 3 1/2 years He ministered on earth; but when the Spirit of God took him out into the Arabian Desert, and taught him for 3 years, he came back believing and preaching the same revelation all those other apostles preached; and that is what Christians of that day believed. The New Testament believers continued like that; until Satan managed to inject his presence into their assemblies. He is a spirit also; and he also inspires people to do and say things the same way the Spirit of God does. First he began to cause certain one's to bring into the different assemblies, things that were not truth. That was not possible in the very beginning of the New Testament Church; because only genuine believers dared to join themselves to that Holy Ghost filled, God fearing group of people; but as time passed, and the first generation of believers began to leave the scene, that left some in places of leadership that did not have a complete revelation of the word of God. That gave Satan an opportunity to get into the Church; and he has been going to church ever since then. That which was untruth began to divide that which was made and put together by truth; so that by the time the 5th century rolled around, the original apostolic Christian Church seemed to have left the scene completely. For the next one thousand years the world groped in spiritual darkness, comparable to no other era of human history. In secular history it was called the Dark Ages; because Romanism had taken out every cardinal teaching of the Bible that the early Christians believed; and substituted their own dogmas, creeds, and ceremonial rituals in place of them. That is why there had to be a Reformation; which started about 1500 A.D. The Reformation has been by bits and pieces though; because each movement that came out of an older system would just go so far with the Spirit of God, and then they would stop and build a fence around what they had; and never go a step beyond what they had fenced in. Naturally that would force the few that did hunger for more, to have to go out from them, in order to follow the leading of the Spirit of God that is always present to fill those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; and for more revelation of His word. One thing is sure though; any time anyone ventures out beyond those old denominational fences, they are sure to be warned against becoming involved with a cult. That is what those Doctors of Divinity call everything that does not originate from within their particular circle of belief. There are all kinds of cults in the world today; and you can know they are cults if you will take the time to examine their activities; but the mere fact that some people in this world choose to worship the Creator in the same atmosphere, and in the same revelation as the first century Christians, does not make them a cult. There are all sorts of things being done in the name of some religious group in this hour of time; things you know for sure are demon inspired activities; and that keeps a lot of hungry souls from even daring to venture out to seek truth, lest they get caught up in something that is a cult. I do not mean to glorify the devil; but we would have to be very foolish not to realize how cunning he is; and how determined he is, to bring reproach upon everyone who endeavors to serve the God of heaven in truth. Why is Satan stirring up so much trouble in the ranks of Christianity, you may say? Simply because he knows his time is short. He knows a lot more about the word of God than a lot of professing Christians in our day; and you can be assured of something else also, he knows what got Adam and Eve off the track; and he knows what will get a lot of people off the track today. That is why he has sin painted up to look so beautiful; and every wrong thing made to look so right. What we are approaching in this 3rd chapter as we continue on our subject, is so important I just have to say things in a way that will cause certain doctors of divinity who think they are smart, to set up and take notice. I do not mean that they should take notice of me; but of something I feel I have to say; because I have read what they have said. What they have said does not even sound like common sense. Many are saying, What does it matter, what took place in the garden, just as long as we are saved? That is one human way to look at things; but with that attitude they could just as easily say, What does it matter what the New Testament says? Modern day religion has just about come to that place already; for their one theme is, It matters not what you believe, just as long as you believe in Jesus. The truth is, If Jesus appeared to us Gentiles tomorrow, like He did to the Jews 2000 years ago, most religions would be ready to crucify Him just like they did. The reason they could not accept Him, was because He did not come down the road 2000 years ago agreeing with religious rituals. The religion they had brought them together every Sabbath day for the reading of the scriptures of the prophets, which told them of a Messiah which was to come. Yet one day when He did come walking down the river bank to be baptized by John, and later offered Himself to them according to the words of the prophets, were they spiritually ready to receive Him? No. Why were they not ready? Because their spiritual minds were already set to a preconceived theory concerning the awaited Messiah, according to what we now call theology; and He just simply did not measure up to their expectations. When He taught them from the scriptures, that religious bunch of Pharisees probably said, That is not what I believe. Did that hinder the Messiah from coming? No. He came anyway; doing exactly what the great Creator led Him to do. He came right down the pathway of life, walked right into religious headquarters at Jerusalem, and began to preach. They all got angry with Him; because He did things, and said things completely contrary to the way they had believed He should; if He truly were their Messiah they had waited for according to their interpretation of their own scriptures. Well after 1900 years of the gospel, our religious world is the same way. Where did it all start? All the way back in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve chose to go against the instructions their Creator had given them. In that beautiful place of paradise, which was the beginning, both of an earthly plant life, and an earthly animal kingdom. Adam and Eve were both naked and not ashamed; because there had been no sin committed that would cause them to be conscious of any wrong doing. They did not know what sin was. That is why, as we come to chapter 3, chapter 3 is not the beginning of the genealogy of the human race. Chapter 3 tells us how Adam and Eve had been instructed in chapter 2, of what they could eat; which included the fruit from all of the plant life trees; but was forbidden to partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Let us read Genesis 2:9,16,17; so we can have the actual wording from the Bible. "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (These two trees were in the MIDST of the garden) And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." We tried to illustrate the fact that these two trees were not plant life trees, by leaving off the lower trunk and root system, when we drew up the little chart we are using. Adam and Eve knew what those two trees symbolized in the spirit world; therefore they needed no one to tell them they were not for their natural food. Naturally our critics, especially the great doctors of divinity, do not agree with this; but they cannot prove otherwise. It matters not how much Hebrew and Greek you know, you will never find anything scripturally indicating that these two trees grew out of the ground. The Bible gives us enough, our own common sense should see the rest. After they had sinned, and God was driving them from this beautiful paradise environment, do you think they dug up the tree of knowledge and carried it with them? You critics give me an answer. If it were a plant life tree, and if they had been driven from a geographical spot of ground, they would have had to do that; for mankind has been living off of that tree every since then. Every human being that has ever been born into this world, except for Jesus Christ, is a product of the tree of knowledge. Man's knowledge drives him on and on, always reaching for a higher plane. How much higher can he get than going to the moon? How much higher can he get, than wanting to put satellites in space and live out there? All of that is of science. It is all of earthly knowledge from the tree of knowledge. From that tree of knowledge came every grave yard on the face of this earth. From that tree of knowledge came also every heartache, every disease, every crime that has ever been committed; and the very nature to be contrary to the perfect will of God. Do not tell me it was a natural fruit tree; for there is no natural fruit from any tree upon the face of the earth, that makes a person a killer. Common sense will tell you there is no fruit of plant life on this earth, that gives anyone heart trouble, tuberculosis, cancer, nor any of those dreaded diseases. All those are things imputed and many of them become genetically hereditary in the human flow of reproduction, as man reproduces himself on the face of this earth; and it is all because man is living from the tree of knowledge; but Adam and Eve did not transplant either of those trees; so open your eyes and let common sense have a chance to speak to you. You must also realize that the tree of life was not a plant life tree; or we would not have access to it today. I say that from the standpoint of what some of you believe; that these were literal trees, and that Adam and Eve were driven from a beautiful fenced garden. Do any of you know where such a tree is growing today? Let me tell you where the tree of life is today. In heaven. As Jesus Christ spoke to John, on the Isle of Patmos, (you read it in the book of Revelation) actually speaking to the Ephesian church, which was the type of the first Gentile church age, the age when all believers believed the same truth, He said this, (Rev. 2:7) "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." This was spoken in 96 A.D., after the Church had began to drift; and Jesus had issued a warning to her. He closed His warning with those words; which gave them a chance to repent and receive the fullness of God's blessings, given to those who obey His word. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life." Where did He say it is? In the Middle East? No. In the paradise of God. Where is that? It is heaven today; and will remain there throughout the rest of this age. Is it plant life living in a spiritual heaven? You surely realize, that kind of plant life does not exist there. It is a spiritual tree. It is a symbolic tree, a tree of eternal life. It was the basic law that all perfect human life should have come from; and it becomes very clear once you know what the eating of the fruit consisted of. Only in the garden of Eden, was the terminology `eating,' used in connection with those two trees. Outside the garden, (or outside of that paradise presence of the Creator) we have been eating of the tree of knowledge ever since; but we do not refer to it as eating. What do we call it? That depends upon your degree of revelation of God's word. However the key to understanding, is in realizing that sex for pleasure was not in the original instructions given to Adam and Eve. The original plan was to be for them to have sex only for the purpose of repopulating the planet; like the animal kingdom does even still.

Follow me; as we pick up what we want to look at in chapter 3. The time had come that God was going to allow "who" to do "what?" The test had to come. Just as God led Jesus, by the Spirit, (according to Matthew's account) into the wilderness, where He was tempted and tested by the devil, so the time came that Adam and Eve were going to be confronted with something; on the basis of a test. How was this test going to come about? Let us read it. (Gen. 3:1) "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" At that time, the serpent was not a snake. He was not a crawling reptile. How many times artists have painted a picture of a garden scene, with a snake hanging from a tree loaded with beautiful apples, talking to Eve. That is just plain witchcraft to devise such a picture. HEAR ME! That is witchcraft! Above everything else, you have to realize this, The serpent was not a reptile at that time. Then you should pay attention to the word subtil. Notice what the Bible says about the serpent. (3:1) "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. (Look up the word subtil; and see what it comes from.) What does this tell us? We know that back in chapter 2, God has described how He brought forth every beast of the earth and every creeping thing thereof. As we would look in the animal kingdom, (we do not have space here to show it all) we would see the little fishing worm. He has his place in creation. We can see the various lizards. They have their place. Yes, there are certain snakes out there, crawling around; and they are reptiles. They have their place also; but they are not of the serpent family. They are reptiles; and they always have been; but the serpent was not a reptile in the beginning. There are many species of the reptile family; and not one of them will cross breed with another. God designed them to be like that. From that, we come to the various other creatures of life. We have the lion, the elephant, the giraffe, the zebra, the horse, the cow, and on into the baboons, the monkeys, the gorillas, and all of them; and they are all a separate creation of the Creator. What are our educated scientists exploring today, trying to find the missing link between man and the highest form of the animal kingdom? They are trying to connect you and me with either a chimpanzee or baboon. They know there is a missing link between man and beast; but they have not been able to come to any definite conclusion about what that missing link is; and we know why. They refuse to believe what is so clearly written and vindicated in the pages of what we believe to be the word of God; (the Bible). They are so determined to prove that we evolved from a higher form of the animal kingdom, they cannot accept the truth when they hear it. We did not evolve. We were created by the God of all creation; just like the Bible says. What happened way back in the beginning, is the mystery that is going come to light right here at the end time. Why will it come about? Because there are too many questions in your world of intellectual learning; men trying to disprove God altogether; so there has to come something out of the beginning of the book, that shows right here at the end, what happened; that set this whole creation in such disarray, and plunged the human race into such moral and spiritual decay. Doctors of divinity, critics, you will never be able to prove that anything of plant life brought all the heart aches and sorrows upon the human race; that we see in the world today. You may say, Well even if what you say is true, what does it matter? God is going to prove to some people before it all ends, that it does matter. I have said many times, If you critics have not the answer, why go around telling people who do have the answer, You are wrong? If you do not have anything to challenge the atheists and evolutionists with, then you had better go home and be still. God gave us a book; from which a true revelation can be revealed to those who respect it; but when you misinterpret it, and refuse to be corrected, You are destined to end up like a lost ball in high weeds. There is only one thing that can change that picture; and that is a true revelation given to you by the Holy Ghost. We still need to take a better look at the serpent. He is not here today in his original form; but I wonder how many people realize the Bible says he is still here, and that he will be here even in the Millennium? You find it in Isaiah, 65:25; where the prophet was inspired to speak of the time of the Millennium. Notice what it says about the serpent. "The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord." This is that kingdom age; when Jesus Christ will rule and reign in righteousness; and it speaks of the serpent who was cursed, and taken from his position right next to man who was made in the very image of God, as a spirit being. In his fleshly makeup, man has certain fleshly resemblances of the animal kingdom, over which he was put here to rule. The serpent, in his original state, was an intelligent animal creature that stood next to man in appearance and intelligence. He was a servant given to man to assist him. He was to this creation, what the prehistoric man was to that creation in the prehistoric era. Neither of these creatures were sons of God; they just stood at the head of the animal kingdom of their respective era's. What is referred to as the prehistoric man, was just the highest form of intelligence in that era of life on this planet. Likewise God gave to this animal kingdom a like creature. For what purpose? To carry out orders, instructions given to him by Adam the son of God, who was a God-like creature made to rule and reign over the entire creation. We need to remember; God created all those animals to be help meets to Adam. They all had a place to fill, in God's plan of refilling the planet with life. The serpent however, described as being more subtil than all the rest, was endowed with the intelligent capability to be influenced by some source. The horse could never have done what the serpent did; and neither could any of the other creatures God had created; for they did not have the intelligent capabilities to communicate with the woman, to convince her that God was keeping something back from them. In other words, she was deceived; just like the apostle Paul said; in 1st Timothy 2:14, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." There is no way for us know at what point the devil started to work on the serpent; nor how long it took him to convince that servant of Adam's to seduce his master's wife; nor how long it took him to break down the woman's resistance; for I could never believe he was able to deceive her the first time he approached her. I am sure of this, Satan had to have an intelligent creature to work through; and no other animal was intelligent enough to intellectually deceive a daughter of the Creator. The word subtil (subtle in our vocabulary) means, the ability to mislead or deceive. You can say the same thing about a lot of these two legged creatures roaming the streets in our day; They are subtle. The have no other ambition in life, but to deceive someone else; usually for a monetary gain. On the other hand, there are a lot of people in the human family on earth, that would find it hard to put together the right thoughts to deceive someone else. When the devil gets hold of the mind of a smart person, that person is capable of devising never before heard of tactics to deceive someone else. Why is it today, that there is so much corruption in the world? Simply because there are a lot of these human minds that are subtle, and all they do is sit around thinking up some kind of scheme to use on someone else. You never see a rooster trying to deceive anything. You do not see anything in the rest of the animal kingdom deceiving any of the rest of the animal kingdom. They do not have the intelligence for Satan to use in that way. Deception has to come, in the intellect realm. This is not mental telepathy we are talking about. Neither is it a snake hanging from a limb in an apple tree saying, Eve: Come here, I want to talk to you. That is a carnal picture. It is as carnal as anything can possibly be. This serpent was a two legged creature, standing on the ground, walking upright like man; and able to talk like a man. His intelligence stood right next to man; but he was not a son of God. It was him, that came to Eve; not the devil. There are people that accuse us of teaching that Eve was seduced by the devil; but I can assure you of this; No one has ever taught from this pulpit, that Eve had intercourse with the devil. Any person that knows anything at all, knows that the devil is a spirit; and people do not have sexual intercourse with spirits. Spirits need instruments to work through.

The son and daughter of God had been created in innocence; knowing nothing at all about sin and rebellion. God placed them in this beautiful paradise naked; with a commission, and with the commandment; if I may say it like that. Genesis 1:28, says, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Then in chapter 2, verses 16-17, we find the rest of their instructions; "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Time passed; we do not know how much; and then it was time for God to allow His children to be tested; so let us again read verse 1, of chapter 3, and notice what that intelligent, earthly minded creature approached the woman with. Just listen to the conversation. "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" He had vocal chords. He was able to talk. It is not a situation where mental telepathy was used. He did not have Satanic powers to put a thought into Eve's mind. He was vocally talking and communicating to her a thought; and he put it into the form of a question. "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" This creature knew exactly what they had been told; how they could eat of every tree in the garden. He knew they had been warned about partaking of the certain tree in the MIDST of the garden. Yes the language is eat; that is where the mystery is hidden; in the term eat. Well Eve talked back. It has all been lying here in the Bible for 6000 years; so do not look at this as something we have invented. Make up your mind saints: Do you want truth, or do you want to continue on with denominational tradition, that makes no sense at all? This serpent was something that looked just as much like man as anything could possibly look. He probably did not appear as refined as Adam: but I assure you, He was not some hunchback, bow legged, snaggle toothed creature bobbing up and down, coming through the garden. He was a physical creature made strictly by the Creator to do manual work; and given the ability to communicate with Adam, in order to know what to do. Adam was given the commission; so the serpent was to get his work orders from him. What do we do today? Do thus and so. Satan was ready to use that instrument; as soon as God was ready to allow it. "And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden." (She was truly talking about the plant life trees.) "But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, (That tree did not grow out of the ground.) God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." That word LEST, did not mean MAYBE you will die; it emphatically declared that they would die, if they disobeyed; and Adam was not confused about the terminology; he knew what God meant. We will say more about that later; but for now, let us listen to the conversation between Eve and the serpent. Eve was not teaching a parrot how to talk. I have seen these zoo trainers how they teach certain creatures to bark, and count; but that serpent needed no one to teach him to talk; the Creator created him with that ability; as well as with the intelligence to carry on an intelligent conversation. In answer to his question, Eve replied, "But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." To that the serpent replied, "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Why would the serpent answer back like that? Was that a thought he had cooked up himself? No sir. That was because Satan, that fallen angel Lucifer, which had already been judged, and cursed, and stripped of his glory, was being allowed by God who created him, to stand there in that beautiful place, doing something to get back at the Creator Himself for judging him. Therefore Satan, that fallen spirit, had influenced the serpent creature; (actually taken over his mind) and was causing him to approach Eve like that. "Ye shall not surely die." Saints: I want to remind you, Those same words are being repeated in our schools today. How? Why? About 30 some years ago, when our school systems opened up to that liberal spirit, and began to say, The time has come that our young generation of people need to have sex education in the schools; they opened the door for this evil spirit to come in; and he came in with every evil thought imaginable. Teachers everywhere began to say, Our children need to be taught the facts of life. Well they are teaching them the pleasurable facts of life; but they avoid mentioning the consequences of going contrary to God's moral standards; so you can easily see where their inspiration came from. I am going to tell you for certain, Those teachers and philosophers who came on the scene advocating this, were not inspired by God. Hear me! They were inspired by a spirit of Satan; that has waited a long time to get into the American society, which was previously influenced by religious standards and convictions. Our society lived for years being guided by standards of moral decency set by our God fearing forefathers. It remained so until after WW2.; when a new breed of teachers came upon the scene. Did they come into the class room with a Bible in their hand? No, they did not. Did they come in telling your children and grandchildren, The Bible has said that to live a sexually active life is wrong? Did they? No, they did not! They began to open up the minds of our youth, a little here, and a little there, until they finally penetrated their thoughts. It is almost unbelievable, how quickly they schooled out of our youth the principles of decency they had been raised up to observe. Almost everything they had learned at home and at church, was treated by those educators as if their parents and church leaders had been doing them an injustice by teaching them such things. Does that sound familiar? God did not mean it that way. Your parents are just trying to deprive you of your human rights. You need to be free to express yourselves. Does that sound like what the serpent said to Eve? It should; it came from the same source. Satan inspired the serpent to talk to Eve like that; to get her to doubt that God had their interest at heart, when He said to them, "But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, Ye shall not eat of it, lest ye die." Before very long, many of those liberal teachers had their students believing their parents were actually against them; and that they just wanted to deprive them of having any pleasure in life. I am not saying every teacher that taught sex education had such a motive; nor am I meaning to say that those who did look at it that way, were totally evil people. Satan used them, just like he used the serpent; by taking control of their thoughts a lot of the time. Why do we have a million and some odd illegal pregnancies every year now, if something has not gotten out of control in these areas? Do not tell me it is God's fault. I ask you plainly, Who is behind all of this moral breakdown, since we know it is contrary to God's moral standards of decency? The devil, which modernists say does not exist, is the guilty culprit. They are unable to see the devil at work; because they cannot see God. That just simply goes together; if you cannot believe in a sovereign God, how then could you believe there is any such spirit as a devil? For that reason, a lot of those educators do not realize Satan is using their own thoughts to teach our youth such things. Whether you like it or not, or agree with me or not, the facts of life, along with the consequences of going against the will of God, were taught by the Jewish people to their children. Read it in the Law. Those ten commandments that they were to write over the door posts of their houses were not there just for decoration purposes; they endeavored to live by them. When they went out they read them; and when they came back in they read them; therefore they were always fresh in their minds. The children growing up in those homes would no doubt ask, Daddy: What is that for? At a certain age, Daddy would no doubt begin to teach those little children about the God that gave Moses those two tables of stone, with those commandments written thereupon. "Thou shalt not commit adultery." What does that mean, Daddy? Do you think that daddy would lie to that little son or daughter? No. At about age 12, I believe Dad would say, Son, this is God's word. This is what God requires those who believe in Him to live by. Then I believe he would explain to them what each commandment pertained to; and why a righteous God would see it that way. That is the way it was supposed to be. Parents were supposed to teach their children to obey the word of God.

I realize I am going slow; but please, this is not a subject we need to rush through. Not only are we endeavoring to prove a truth concerning the shape the world population is in today, we also need to cover the points your scholars like to use their knowledge of Hebrew and Greek to try and disprove. Let them try to disprove what happened in the garden of Eden with their words of education if that is what they want to do; but I believe every true child of God deserves to have some ammunition of his, or her own to face them with when necessary. I am not an educated man; but there is one thing I know for sure; God does not require anyone to be educated; before He reveals truth to them. If you are a child of His, It is the responsibility of the Holy Ghost in you; to lead you into all truth. That is exactly what Jesus Christ Himself taught. You can read it in John 16:13 if you like. Here is what He said, "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come." The age we live in tells us, That whatever took place back there, is the reason the earth is in such a mess today; and I challenge any doctor of divinity, to prove to me it was an apple they ate, that brought all this heartache and ungodliness into the world. I know most of us came out of systems of religion that taught that version of the fall of Adam; but after you come to know the truth, you wonder how anyone in their right mind could believe a lie like that. You talk about deception, that is deception pure and simple; and your great scholars have swallowed it right up. Just listen to that old devil inspired serpent talk; verse 3, "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: (That sounds just like a lot of these scientists and doctors of divinity today. They will read a verse from the Bible, and try every way known to man, to get you to believe God did not mean it the way it sounds. In other words, they try to get you to doubt the word of God. Just listen.) For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Some of these doctors of divinity talk just exactly like that. Now you know that is not true. That is not what God meant; He meant so and so. Well that character just kept on talking until Eve finally broke down. He sounded very convincing; just like some of the philosophers in our colleges. If you care to be sexually active, go ahead; there is nothing wrong with it; they will say. They deny the word of God; and send people down the road toward hell, heartache, and disillusionment. Teen age children are bringing life into the world; knowing nothing at all about how to take care of the little baby; and the responsibility falls to either their parents, or some Government agency; to care for it. Is that the way the Creator ordained it to be? Not at all. "Then your eyes shall be opened." He was right about that much; but they were better off before their eyes were opened. Innocence is a blessed thing; but we are living in an age when innocence is a rarity. Small children today, know just about everything there is to know about the facts of life. The sad part though, is that they are not taught the proper responsibility of handling that knowledge. Those who rape the conscience of our small children with their careless ways of teaching sex education, should be made to pay the doctor and hospital bills that follow. Well they are not going to do that; but you mark my word, They are going to answer to God for what they are doing. That philosopher (the serpent) said to Eve, "In the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, (What a promise!) knowing good and evil." I am sure that when everyone exists in an innocent state, some things that come creeping along begin to tug at their mind's, and they just have to investigate. Man is a strange creature. You have heard it said, that a cat is a curiosity seeker. When they see something they do not understand, they will creep around and watch it from every angle; they want to know what it is. (I am just using that to illustrate one trait of mortal mankind.) You present something before man, that has a little mystery surrounding it, and before long, he will be reaching out to gouge at it. If you put something in his mind, he is going to play with it. That is a natural trait of natural mankind. We are curious creatures; and Satan knows it. That is why he is always placing temptation before us. It is only the Spirit of God, that keeps us from poking our nose's into his traps. He always has an agent on hand to place temptation before us. That is what the serpent was used for, in the garden of Eden; to get the woman curious enough to investigate. Let me ask you a question. Why did the serpent come to Eve? Yes. Why did he approach the woman? Why did he not approach the man? I will tell you why, if you will sit and listen. Then when you see why, you will see why God cursed her reproductive organs (verse 16) instead of her mouth. We have very few words here, as far as what the writer of the scripture was led to write; but what these few words speak of, could have covered a lengthy period of time when it was taking place. I cannot believe that daughter of God was convinced to go against her Creator's will, the first time she was approached in this way. This creature, being influenced by Satan to approach her at just the right time, had no doubt used many words of persuasion. It was just not necessary for the writer to say so. God did not have every little detail written in the Bible; so the natural human mind could easily understand everything without the Holy Spirit revealing it. God speaks certain things in few words; but when you catch the picture, and the Holy Spirit anoints you to do so, you can write books and volumes about it. Well my point is, the serpent did not accomplish his work with Eve in a 15 minute conversation. There had to be a little process of time. Then verse 6, gives us a little picture of the woman's response once she has finally been convinced. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, (Notice it said, to make one wise.) she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." There is not a plant life tree on the face of this earth, that can give you a better mentality, making you wise. If there is, I certainly feel that I ought to have eaten some of that kind of fruit when I went to school. No, saints: this is a different kind of wisdom; the kind Satan likes for you to get; so it will pervert your thinking. "She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat." At this time, for the sake of making the message completely clear, let me just be plain. Eve, the help mate, or wife of Adam, who had been designed to be the mother of all living, was seduced by the serpent to partake of a relationship contrary to the will of God. She was convinced that it was alright to have an affair. With who? That serpent creature, of course. Some of you may say, Bro. Jackson, I never heard anything like that before. I never had either, until about 30 some years ago. Then I later learned that this generation was not the first ever to see the truth about that. My grandfather on my mother's side, knew it. In 1957, in the month of November, when we were going to Cuba, we were staying with my grandparents; and one night he said to me, when we were talking about the Bible, Junior, I don't know if you have heard this or not; but Eve did not eat an apple. I said, I know that. Then he said, She had an affair with the serpent.